December 19, 2018 Wednesday Evening with Aaron, Christmas StoriesThe Power of the Open Heart to Choose Love

Aaron: My blessings and love to you all. I am Aaron. Thank you for being here with me tonight. And online, I see your faces here, but I’m to look at the camera’s blue dot. When I’m looking at the blue dot, do you see me looking into your eyes? (yes)

When we started these Christmas Stories 30 years ago it was in Barbara’s living room. By that time, that first year, already a large group of people— 15 or 20 people, sitting around Barbara’s fire. And the next year, probably closer to 30 people. So, we were squeezed in a bit, with the fire burning in the background. The group was all local. The transcripts would be laboriously written by hand. We didn’t have email. The transcripts were handwritten— no computer, either. They were Xeroxed and mailed out to those people who requested them.

December 19, 2018 Wednesday Evening with Aaron, Christmas Stories
The Power of the Open Heart to Choose Love

Aaron: My blessings and love to you all. I am Aaron. Thank you for being here with me tonight. And online, I see your faces here, but I’m to look at the camera’s blue dot. When I’m looking at the blue dot, do you see me looking into your eyes? (yes)

When we started these Christmas Stories 30 years ago it was in Barbara’s living room. By that time, that first year, already a large group of people— 15 or 20 people, sitting around Barbara’s fire. And the next year, probably closer to 30 people. So, we were squeezed in a bit, with the fire burning in the background. The group was all local. The transcripts would be laboriously written by hand. We didn’t have email. The transcripts were handwritten— no computer, either. They were Xeroxed and mailed out to those people who requested them.

This technology is amazing— here you are, right here in my living room! Such a joy to be with you, to feel your energy; to feel your open and loving hearts.

This morning, when Barbara awakened, she said, Aaron, what are you going to talk about tonight? I said, Love. What else is there to talk about? If we’re talking about Christmas stories, we’re talking about love.

Remember that what I say is from my own experience. If it does not accord with your experience, religious views, or any such, let it go. I speak truth as I know truth, but I do not try to push my truth on you. So, if my truth resonates for you at some level, use it and learn from it. If it does not thusly resonate, let it go.

In the beginning there was no beginning, there was simply energy and light. Energy and light that had been and always will be truly the ground of the universe, energy and light, but not yet manifest in any clear way. There was a strong intention from— can I call it angels? Brothers and Sisters of Light is perhaps the best term, very high and loving beings who looked at the balance of light and darkness in the universe and asked, how can light become more fully manifest? Because, with darkness, with negative polarity that breeds on fear and hatred and pain, there is suffering. With positive polarity there is love. There is ease and spaciousness.

So the idea came, to some of these Brothers and Sisters of Light, to take a heavy density planet and help— let me phrase this a bit differently—to take the potential for a heavy density planet not yet existent and create a ground of energy out of which that planet could manifest. There are many stories of creation in different of your traditions, but they all have certain likenesses. God said, “Let there be Light,” and there was Light. And then the Heaven and Earth, the lands and the waters, people and animals. And vital to this creation, free will.

Why is free will so vital? Let’s use the Garden of Eden story. This Eden, in which consciousness lived in a very high, resonant vibration, preceded the foundation of the Earth. This consciousness had no material bodies, no heavy physical/emotional/mental body, just the very fine, high spirit body, that energy. Everything was expressing in a heavenly realm, Eden. But these consciousnesses that inhabited Eden simply were. They did not choose; they received everything they needed and there was no free will choice. There was no separation, me and you, self and other. So, there was no jealousy, there was no pride. There was no anger. It was a high vibration but it could be higher. If there is no anger, there’s no joy. If there’s no selfishness, there’s no generosity. What feeds highest vibration? The intent of the Brothers and Sisters of Light, of which my teacher Ariel was one, their intention was to see how high a vibration could be created. How far could love go? How much can love set boundaries for negativity? Within the whole universe in which there was already strong negativity, how much can love dissolve to negativity?

Humans were given free will to make choices. And, in being given free will they also experienced the ego and the separated self. This was part of the experience of moving into human form at that time, the whole notion of separated self. Of course, we know there is no separated self, but people still experienced it.

The world had many highs and lows at that point, through many millennia. Moving into the experience of separated self, different religious traditions came in to teach that it was wrong to move into the separated self but sometimes with the distortion, “Oh, you’re bad— you’re moving into the separated self.” That kind of scolding doesn’t help the loving heart to emerge.

There were certain traditions that were very beautiful. The Buddha, the whole Buddhist tradition of the possibility of awakening, and the deeper truth: you are already awake— how do you realize that awakening? The Jewish tradition of a loving God. Not many wrathful gods but one loving God. Some traditions in, let us simply say places you have never of and traditions you have never heard of. But spiritual beliefs that were deeply based in love. But these were a minority. On Earth, for millennia, hatred and self-benefit flourished, and people turned their backs on what was for the highest good for all beings— the whole foundation of the Earth. But because there was free will, spirit could not say, “Oh no, you can’t do it that way.” Sentient beings had free will choice. Many just banged their head against a wall incessantly, trying to figure out, “Why am I not doing well? Why is my world not doing well? Why is there so much hatred, so much cruelty, so much war? Why are THEY creating war?” Not, how am I participating in this creation? So, there was a deep need for people to understand there is no me or them. When there is some kind of cruelty in the world you are all always participant in some way, even if just by ignoring the roots of it. In this way, the whole matter of free will choice became vital.

This brings us up to— let’s say it brings us up to Buddha’s time, when he saw the truth of human suffering and concluded there must be a path out of suffering. Not just a temporary path, as was taught by many teachers of his day, where if you experienced high jhana states, deep meditation states, temporarily your consciousness removed itself from the world; but you couldn’t stay there. These people got their fixes of high consciousness repeatedly, but they were not awake. Or, more succinctly, they were not aware that the awakened state was within them, that heaven was within them.

Then came the birth of the one we know as Yeshua. Many generations from the time of Buddha’s birth and awakening preceded Yeshua, much planning from high beings. But always with free will of humans. So, humans were never told, “You should do this, you should do that,” only, “Here are some options for you to consider.”

Yeshua, in his youth, had the opportunity to study with Buddhist teachers. He was, of course, born already awake. Other teachers have been born already awake, too—Yeshua was not alone in that— but Yeshua was the one that is best known. But, even if you are already awake—and all of you ARE already awake— you still have to realize it. So, it was very helpful for Yeshua to have this foundation, to realize how strong this divine essence was within him, and the power of free will to manifest this divine essence on Earth. And to help others also to realize their divinity.

We all know the stories of Yeshua’s life, the Biblical stories. For those who have not heard any of these Christmas stories before, I lived in the Essene community in which Yeshua took birth, of which his parents were a part. I was 6 years his elder and through our youth often related to him as a dear friend. He was wise; he was loving; and sometimes he tripped over his shoelaces, as all of us do.

I remember a time— this with the boy, Yeshua. He was about 7 and I was about 13, give or take a few years— I’m not good at keeping track of your linear time. Some things are just beyond my comprehension. We were walking in the fields outside our community, in the hills and fields, quite a distance away, so that it was not just our community but where our community lands merged with other lands. We heard some noises, some shouting, and quietly crept up to see what was happening, as boys will do. Staying hidden very well, and looking out under the trees, under the shrubs. We saw boys throwing stones at a dog. The dog was yelping. The boys were my age or older, so, bigger than us. Yeshua wanted to rush right in and say, “Stop that!” I was aware they would beat him up. And when I accompanied him in this way his safety was entrusted to me, to some degree, because I was older. So I held him back. “No, Yeshua, you can’t do that.”

Eventually the boys went away, leaving a very injured dog. All we could do was to go and soothe it, give it water. Hold it, love it. The dog was not vitally injured. It probably had some broken bones, some cuts. It whimpered in terror when we approached it. To this day I have no idea why they were abusing the dog in this way. But Yeshua and I sat with the dog— remember, this is a 6 or 7 year old Yeshua. He held the dog in his lap, and said, “I love you, I love you,” repeatedly, and I did the same of course, but it was his power and energy that came through.

The dog was beginning to show more signs of energy— lifting his head, drinking the water we gave him. And then Yeshua and turned to me and said, “I feel so angry at those boys! I hate those boys!” And as he said that, the dog shrunk into himself and began to tremble. Yeshua was speaking quite loudly, really focusing his anger. And I must say, 6 years older than Yeshua, but I was feeling the same thing, just not giving voice to it.

We watched the dog, and the dog’s reaction to our anger and hatred. Yeshua said to me, after a few minutes— my name was Nathaniel in that lifetime— he said, “Nathaniel, we must stop hating.” I said, “How do I do that?” He said, “My mother tells me to find the love within myself, when I am angry.” So, we held hands with the dog between us. I said, “I can focus on the dog and find love. I can focus on you and find love. But if I focus on those boys, I feel hatred and anger again.” He said, “Let us just focus on each other and the dog. I love you, I love you…”

And then— wisdom from a child— after a few minutes of this, he said, “Nathaniel, if they were so cruel to the dog, they must have been subjected to cruelty themselves. I see how I can love them.” Very powerful wisdom, there. “They must have been subjected to cruelty. I see how I can love them.” This is the root of compassion. This is the compassion that he came to teach us, this wisdom from the as yet still very young child. But he remembered who he was, as many of you as humans are trying to remember. He remembered the divine realm from which he came, the realm of love from which he came. So, in this way he was able to consciously choose to let go of the anger and hatred out of his free will choice.

And this is what is so vital for all of you. All of you in this world have things you would attack with anger and with hatred, be it in politics— people whose views are different from your own. Politics— I will not name names, but there is one figure that brings up a lot of negativity for many of you! You are love, and you have come to make the free will choice not to engage in hatred, in negativity, in condemnation of others. But this does NOT mean that you allow others to do harm.

The place of strength in you knows how to say no to negativity, the place of love, for you are love. If anger says no, it’s just more anger. But when love says no, it’s beyond anything, in its power. This does not mean you can’t be killed, right there saying no. But when enough humans say no to hatred, fear, and negativity of all sorts, this world is going to move back into the Eden that it was created to be, but an awakened Eden. One in which you understand your power of manifestation through free will; your ability to choose darkness or light, love or fear. And to bring forth and manifest light and love. It’s up to you.

Now we’re going to fast-forward many years: Yeshua as the young man just barely beginning his ministry. I had the grace to walk with him at times. I was not one of his group of innermost disciples; I was an old friend. But when he was near I loved to go out and walk with him for a few days or weeks.

We were walking through a wilderness area when in the distance we heard crying. Moving off the main path toward the sound, real cries of misery and pain. We came upon a group of lepers. Some large group of very brutal people had come in and stoned them. This was sometimes done to lepers. People were afraid of them, afraid of catching the leprosy. So, people who had learned cruelty— not innately cruel but who had learned cruelty, who wanted to feel big and bold, they would go in with rocks to a group of lepers and stone them.

We followed this path— Yeshua, myself, 2 or 3, maybe 4 others— and came upon the leper colony. People were bleeding from the wounds of these stones. It brought up so much rage for me. I said to Yeshua, “I just want to stone them back! I HATE this kind of cruelty!” Yeshua turned to me and took my hands and said, “Nathaniel, do you remember the boys who stoned that dog, when we were young?” Yes, I remembered. “Nathaniel, did we go after the boys and stone them back?” And I understood it was not just because they were bigger than us. It was because we both understood that love was the way, not hatred. And that we were here on this earth to enhance the power of love, and to shift consciousness literally into a higher vibration through the power of love; that each human comes with that sacred task. Each human will be confronted by the stone-throwers, in whatever form, and each human is offered free will choice: hatred or compassion.

Yeshua said to me, “Let us see how we can help these people.” Remember, this was now mature Yeshua, not a 6 year old. Even the 6 year old’s loving energy had been able to help the dog, who eventually was able to get up and follow us home. Yeshua did not choose to do obviously miracles. In other words, I think he had the power then to just cure people who had been wounded by these stones, and even who had leprosy. But his work was not to make himself some kind of god who could come along and fix people, but to help people to know their own divinity and their own power to heal themselves and their world. Their own power to love.

So, he simply walked around. We found cloth and bandages, washed wounds. I’m sure when he washed a wound, there was a lot of healing energy in it. The wound did not miraculously disappear, but some of the pain went. We slept there overnight, after everybody had been treated, not just those who had been stoned, but he also examined the wounds of those with leprosy. We slept there. People offered us breakfast. Many people who had been wounded came out and said thank you to us for helping them. And we moved on.

Here is a similar result to another story I told years ago. About 10 days later, coming back, we passed near this leper colony, and so climbed up into the hills just to see how they were doing. They came running to us and said, “You worked miracles!” They showed us how new skin was forming over the leprosy wounds, new growth in the fingers. And Yeshua said, “No, I did not do that; your love did that. Your knowledge of your own innate perfection and your ability to heal. If you believe you are inherently wounded, you will continue to enact those wounds. If you believe the power of love in yourself, then everything is possible. Continue to believe in yourselves. Don’t put me on a pedestal as healer.”

This, let’s call it Christ or awakened consciousness, this is in you. This is what he taught, continuously. Not, “I am a living Christ above all others,” but, “I model what you are so you can see what you are.” You are also awakened. You are also love. You also have the power to heal yourselves and to heal this world, to choose love over hatred, light over darkness and negativity. Your choice.

I never returned to that leper colony. I imagine that immense healing continued there, and, as new lepers found the colony, they were taught how also to release some of the disease and heal themselves. And at least to heal the self-hatred that they were lepers.

I want to focus on this primary message that he brought. We are all divine. We are all sons and daughters of the living and loving God, the Divine Creator. We are all sons and daughters of Love. And it is up to each being to embrace that deep truth of themselves and live it as fully as possible, or, out of fear, to deny it.

So often you deny it. Why? I think it’s because of fear of your power. I’ve said this to many of you before. What if you are truly powerful enough to heal the world? To part the seas? What if you truly had that power? But, you have not fully resolved your negative emotions. The conditions that give rise to negative emotion have not yet fully been purified. So, you don’t know what to do with fear, with anger, with ideas of separation, with pride, with greed.

How can you fully invite your power if you have not yet resolved this— I don’t want to call it this negativity, but the seeds for negativity in yourself? Because you are human, these seeds are not burden but are gift. How could you choose love if you only experienced love? If you never experienced fear, how could you choose love? If you never experienced anger at another, how could you choose compassion? By being born into a world in which you do experience negativity, in each of you, when the negative arises you have an option how you are going to relate to it: with love or with continuance and deepening of the negativity. Fear says “negativity”— throw the stones back at them! And love says no. I repeat, compassion is strong— you don’t just say, “Keep throwing stones,” you find ways to stop them from throwing stones. But not through hatred.

Let me think of one more illustrative story, here… Two stories come to mind. Let’s see if we can include them both.

Another time when I was walking with him, with this time a bit larger a group, 8 or 10 people. We were sleeping at night when brigands came into our sleeping area. They stole everything we had, even our sandals (leaving us barefoot), our cloaks, whatever food and water we had. We were awakened by them, of course, but they had knives, so Yeshua said, “Just let them take what they wish.”

When they were gone, we built up the fire as best we could. We had our undergarments, of course, so we were not naked, but close to it. He said, “Trust all will be well. Do not be afraid.” He asked us to imagine these men, to see if we could bring, each of us, one or another face to mind. We had a close glimpse of their faces because they literally came and tore our blankets and shawls away from us, pushed us, knocked us over, punched us. The same thing: he said, “If we go after them with anger, it will just be more anger. Each of you, imagine the one who assaulted you, and really picture that man. Then envision him as a child being hit, being beaten, perhaps starving; told he was not good, was unlovable. Keep this in your heart until you can really see that child that became the man that attacked you and see if you can offer loving wishes to that child, compassion to that child.”

So, we all did this for an hour or two. I suppose the men (were) thinking we were barefoot, we could not make progress quickly, and because they were a greater sized band than we were, that we would not go after them. But after an hour of meditation with Yeshua, he said, “Now, let us walk on down the road.” It was not yet dawn, that very early light of first dawn. So, we walked, and we walked.

We smelled wood smoke. We walked softly. We approached the area where they were. We knew them to be ignorant, people who had been trained in fear. Yeshua had told us his plan. He said, “We’re going to surround them (but pre-dawn they could not really see us), back deep into the brush, and project our voices out, knowing their religious beliefs, ‘I am this or that deity. You have done wrong. You have beaten others, stolen from others.’” Voices coming from all sides of them. We were a smaller band than them, but we had learned to project our voices well.

They became terrified. “What shall we do?”

Our voices continued, Yeshua leading us: “Take all that you have stolen. Take it into the next village and give it to the poor. And do not thusly steal again.”

“Yes, we’ll do it! We’ll do it!”

“Reflect on how you obtain your needs in this life: in honest and loving ways, or by cruelty and hatred? Reflect and remember that you have the potential for your needs to be met without stealing and brutality.”

So they packed up everything. They took it into the next village. They did not have the courage to see anybody— they simply left it there. We saw people come out and take the things, the food, the robes. We didn’t need them. We would be okay without them.

I thought we were done. But Yeshua said, “We have one more step, here.” The men moved out, and we followed them very silently. And the next night, in the middle of the night, we surrounded them again. And with our voices, we said, “You have done good! You have been wise! You have given back what you have stolen, and good will come to you.” We had found some good food and some robes— a few things, not a lot, but some hardy soup and other things. We said, “Do not leave your encampment now, but when light comes, go down the road a mile and you will find your reward for acting in love. Remember this and do not harm others again.” And at daybreak they crept out and down the road and they found the food. “Oh, the gods are rewarding us! It is truly better to give than to steal!”

It was hard not to laugh. Was it okay to deceive them? They could not have been deceived if they were not caught in a negative consciousness. It was their own negativity that allowed them to be deceived. And of course, our deceit did no harm.

It’s very powerful to change hatred and fear, negativity and greed, into loving kindness and generosity, in yourself and in others. This is what your whole world is learning. There are so many pockets of “brigands” killing and maiming others, stealing from others. You’re going to have to be imaginative, here. How are you going to go after them— encircle them and say, “No, you may not do this,” with a compassionate no and not with hatred? Your internet makes the world small. How can you go out and encircle those who do harm, in this ever-smaller world, and truly say no to negativity? Use your imaginations. Listen to your loving heart.

The practice also begins individually with each of you. Think of one person in your life who is a difficult person— maybe a neighbor with whom you have some conflict, a parent or an in-law, a difficult child, somebody in your workplace. Think of one person and envision them as having been mistreated as a child. Try to imagine what made them be the difficult person that they are. Then, looking deeply at them, try to envision the essence of divine love that is their core, and ask yourself, how can I best invite this? Maybe you will want to bring that person a small gift or invite them out for tea or lunch. The difficult neighbors; invite them over for lunch. The people at the workplace, take them out for coffee. Talk to them about their life. You only know them at the workplace— find out who they are. Ask, “What brings you real joy?” Find that from them. “What do you love?”

See what you have in common. Build on that. And if there’s this little voice inside you that says, “But I hate this person! I hate this person!”— Remember, “I resolve not to enact hatred.” Right there with hatred is love. Without denying the negative feelings, can I find that which is truly loving? Perhaps this person brought cookies for the office and is truly a wonderful baker. Tell them how wonderful the cookies were. Ask them if they would share a special recipe. Begin to look for a spark of light in them. That spark of light is in everybody. In this way, practice love, not hatred, to invite a world that evermore fully shines out with love and not with hatred.

This is what you came for. This is why you took birth. These problematic relatives and neighbors, they are not problems, they are teachers. They are wonderful opportunities. You don’t have to like them, but try to love them and appreciate what they came to teach you. No, you don’t have to make them your best friend, but open your heart and watch where the heart is closed. Perhaps above all things Yeshua taught me the value of the open heart, and that each of us carries that open heart, and the power of that heart to love, to compassion, to forgiveness.

I said there were two stories. I’ll end with this one, and, if the energy is available for it, Yeshua will come in and talk for just a few minutes.

This brings us to the end of his life. We were still dear friends. I was not one of his innermost circle of disciples; that was not my role. But, as a friend, he confided in me at times. So, we were together, and he said to me, “Nathaniel, I am afraid of what is coming. This fear is within me. Am I strong enough, do I have enough love, to fulfill what I came to do?” And I said to him, “Yeshua, remember that dog. We thought he was dead and he came back to life. Remember those robbers and how we helped shift them from a path of brutality to others to opening to the possibility of their own divinity.” I reminded him of a number of other examples. I said, “All of our lives together, this is what you have been teaching me. Remember it for yourself: you are love.” And he looked at me and took my hands, and said, “Yes, we are love. And yet it’s still so hard.” Tears were coming down his face. “It is still so hard.”

I want you to realize that he also felt fear and confusion, and other human emotions. He was human. We each have that same core of divinity that Yeshua had. He was more fully realized than most of us. But this divine essence is within all of us.

What he did, we can do, which is to learn and walk the path of love, of forgiveness, of the open heart. And this is literally why you came into incarnation— each of us being given the opportunity by our own free will choice to help raise the vibrational frequency of this Earth, and support the transition of this entire 3rd density Earth into a higher vibration, into an Eden, a place of love. Are you going to do it, or are you going to say it’s too hard? It is very hard.

This one, this instrument whose body I so lovingly use, she has the very hard pain of the major stroke of her husband this year, and that he is now in a nursing home unable to fully use his body, with aphasia and unable to speak clearly. After 50 years of literally sharing a life, day by day, hour by hour, for the first time, really, in all these 54 years she has had to live alone, separate from him. Much grief, much fear: what will become of me? And frequently crying, and saying, “I can’t do it. It’s too hard.” I have lovingly reminded her: this is a teacher. How can you open your heart to this teacher, knowing the grief as real, knowing the sense of loss as real? But also, opening your heart to both what you and Hal can learn and teach others through continuing to hold your heart open to the possibility of love and healing. By healing, I don’t mean Hal is suddenly going to get up out of his nursing home bed and dance out the door, although that could happen. Not likely, but it could.

The important thing, that I’ve told both of them repeatedly is, to remember that love continues. The body is always going to age. Eventually the body is going to die. On this plane, love continues. On any plane where you find yourself, love continues. You cannot lose this love for your beloved because your beloved one is never far from you. You cannot lose that person. He or she lives in your heart. But, if you despair and say, “How can I continue?” then you cannot feel that love in your heart, you cannot keep that person alive in your heart. This is just one more opportunity to remember you are here to learn love. And, you did not come to fail, you came to succeed! You can do it. You are love.

That said— Yeshua, you are here, I can feel your energy. Do you wish to speak? He says yes, he will speak briefly, probably not too long.

(Yeshua incorporates)

Yeshua: Amazing! I laugh. I think of what you call the Sermon on the Mount, with a small group of disciples— hundreds, but still a small group. Well, what if we could have streamed that all over the earth? Would it have made a difference? (laughing)

So, I thank Aaron for these beautiful stories. They touch my own memories, too. Aaron, my beloved brother Nathaniel, of that lifetime, I cherish these memories.

I’m here to speak about something a bit different. You think of Christmas Day as my birth, the birth of the one you called Jesus, the Christ, Yeshua, Yeshua ben Joseph. But this is not the true meaning. It is not ME that was born that day but rather all of you, your souls awakening into that awareness of your own divine consciousness. Each of you growing yourself from the small seed that is not sprouted, into sprouting and growing and opening into the beautiful rose bush or giant redwood. The rose is in the seed. Some of you are still seeds; some of you have sprouted; some of you are beginning to blossom or even fully blossomed.

On this day that you celebrate in commemoration of my birth, let it be a birthday party for yourselves, for the seed, the sprout, to grow and grow; to radiate out, growing out and out and out! Spreading that light and love in the world.

If enough of you determine to do that, not to shrink yourselves back into the sprout, and further back into the protected seed, but to know, “I am love. I am the expression of the Divine here on earth. God created man in his image. I am that image,” what could happen? This doesn’t mean that you have 5 fingers and God has 5 fingers— 8 fingers and 2 thumbs. It means you are the expression of Divine consciousness on earth, the expression of love. What is God, Goddess? What is it to you? Love is the closest I can come to that. You are love.

God/Goddess/Divine Creator gave us the seeds to plant, to blossom into each soul, each consciousness. I use the word soul, but we could call it anything. In Buddhism, we don’t talk about souls, simply consciousness. Whatever your tradition, what is the essence of you when the mind/body/emotions, when they dissolve? What remains? Who and what are you?

Aaron reminded you that you cannot lose your loved ones. What is the essence of that loved one? What is your essence? What is your neighbor’s essence, with whom you have a hard time? Can you see this spark of God, spark of Divinity, in everything and everyone and treat everyone as if it is God?

Of course, there is brutality and hatred in the world. Even the most brutal and hate-filled person may treat their own beloved infant with kindness, may treat their own beloved mother or father with kindness. Your work is to find that small seed of kindness in everyone and ask how to water and cast sunshine on it in such a way that the sprout can begin to grow, that it can flower. If you fail to realize that that seed and sprout are within, can you nourish it? They may not make it easy to nourish; they may throw rotten tomatoes at you, or far worse. Then, as Aaron pointed out, we say no with kindness. We may have to trick them into kindness— that’s okay.

Someone asked me, telling this story that Aaron told, “So, is it okay to be deceptive?” We did not say, “We are this or that,” we just spoke. It was them that deceived themselves. If they wanted to believe we were something other than just a group of men out there, that very group they had just robbed, that was up to them. It was their fear that made us into something other than a group of men. So, I did not deceive them; Nathaniel did not deceive them. Rather, we said, “You may not do that. You will suffer.” Well, this is true. If you keep stealing and bruising others in painful ways, you will suffer. Karmically, you will suffer the results. If you wish to resolve this negative habit, then take these goods to the town and give them to the poor. Nothing deceptive, there. They created in their mind the idea that we were something supernatural. We did not say we were. How do you say no to negativity with honesty and authenticity? If you speak with love, eventually you will be heard. But it is very hard.

Yes, I came to Nathaniel and told him, near the end of that life, “I must do this, must return to Jerusalem. And I fear I will be put to death, will experience something very painful.” I understood where I was going. I had been training for the crucifixion and the resurrection through my whole life. I understood where I was going and what I had undertaken to do. And yet, the human said, “I’m terrified!” Each of you will face death in your lifetime— this is the nature of human experience. You were born and you will die. It’s up to you whether you will be terrified of death, or whether you will use this incarnation to awaken into a deeper truth of who you are, a truth of the divine consciousness that expresses and manifests through you and can never be destroyed. In this way, the essence that you are can never be destroyed, even though the body will die and the personal consciousness, the ego self will die. But love continues.

This, to me, is what the celebration of my birth is about. It is about the awakening in each of you to know the truth of who you are, and to choose of your own free will to manifest love, increasingly, in this world, no matter how hard that is. Remember that I walk with you every step. If you think of me as Yeshua, divine being, that is who walks with you. If you think of me simply as Yeshua ben Joseph, a man born 2,000 years ago, the loving essence of that spirit walks with you. And your own guides, Aaron, and so many loving beings are walking with you. Why would we support all of you coming into incarnation on Earth and then turn our backs on you and leave you alone? We are with you and supporting you.

You have to ask. If you say, “Well, I don’t believe there’s anything there,” that’s fine. Could you just amend that a bit to say, “In case there IS something there, I’m willing to say, ‘Help me.’ Whatever is there— I don’t know what it is—but, help me.” You don’t have to believe anything special. Just, “Whatever is the power of love in the universe, help me to bring forth increasing love.” Just that. And if you do that it will bring enormous joy into my own heart.

I leave you with my blessings and with my love. Celebrate this season with joy. Celebrate yourselves. Celebrate love. Don’t worry about who I am or whether I’m real. Love is within you. Are you real? Celebrate love within yourself, and the power of the human experience to manifest love. That’s all you need to know.

Barbara: I’ve been introducing myself… The first part was not recorded, meeting Aaron. People began to come to me and ask, “Can we talk to him?” I said, “Sure; if you can hear him, you can talk to him.” Well, other people said, “I can’t hear him.” How do I do this? Aaron said, “Just listen the way you do when I’m talking to you and say out loud what you’re hearing.” Somebody then said to me, “Oh, you’re channeling.” What’s channeling? This was very new to me.

Aaron, Jeshua, and Barbara on the Awakened State; The Lord’s Prayer with Jeshua
Property of Deep Spring Center: https://deepspring.org/

Barbara: I’ve been introducing myself… The first part was not recorded, meeting Aaron. People began to come to me and ask, “Can we talk to him?” I said, “Sure; if you can hear him, you can talk to him.” Well, other people said, “I can’t hear him.” How do I do this? Aaron said, “Just listen the way you do when I’m talking to you and say out loud what you’re hearing.” Somebody then said to me, “Oh, you’re channeling.” What’s channeling? This was very new to me.

Everything he was teaching me for myself made so much sense, and people said what he was saying to them made sense. So gradually I began to trust it. — I trusted Aaron; what I didn’t trust was my own capacity to get it clear; to not tilt it slightly based on my own ego or fear or ideas. But gradually I began to trust that ability too.

This is back in 1989, in the living room of our house. People coming twice a week. One night a week for meditation class; at first, 4 or 5 of us, then 6, 7, 8, 10, 12, 20! And people came one night a week, Wednesday nights, to hear Aaron. In December of 1989, with us gathered in my living room, Aaron said, “Since I was alive during Jeshua’s life, I would like to tell you some stories about what I knew of him.” That was our first Christmas Stories. We’ve been doing it annually ever since.

I find these stories beautiful. A friend, Bill Altork, put together a very lovely book of parts of the stories. Some of these stories are 10, 15 pages, but he’s extracted 2 or 3 pages and put these extracts together into a book called 47 Stories of Jesus. We have some for sale out there.

I love these stories and what they bring up for people. They help me to know Jeshua as a human being and not just the Jeshua of the Bible stories. They make him very real for me, very loving.

Fast forward. The past 15 years I’ve been a medium for other entities, not just Aaron, and among these entities, Jeshua, who has said he will also speak tonight. He will join us and share his take on what Aaron is teaching. It would be lovely if they could talk side by side, but only one can be in my body at a time. So, we’ll let them change places as needed.

That’s the introduction. Deep Spring Center meets here regularly. This is Interfaith Center. We’re blessed to be permitted to use the Center. Dave Bell founded the Center in— what year, David? 1998. Thank you, and thank you and Interfaith Center for sharing the place with us. It’s given us a wonderful home, with a wonderful energy, and we’re grateful.

I can’t think of anything else I need to say. For those who are interested in Deep Spring Center’s programs, please Google deepspring.org

That said, I’m just going to move myself out of the way and invite Aaron to come in.

Aaron: My blessings and love to you all. I am Aaron. What a joy to see all your faces! I don’t see the faces up there, but I imagine there are people there, yes? (yes) My love to all of you. We truly have an international audience here. People across the U.S. and Canada… We’ve had people in recent months from China, from Dubai, from all over. It’s such a delight to be able to share these teachings.

So here we are sitting by my campfire. It is a comfortable winter evening, but the fire feels good and we’re all gathered in close to hear campfire stories; to hear stories of my beloved brother and friend Jeshua. He has promised us he will put in a personal appearance later tonight.

Each month we do, I don’t know the technical word for it but making available something called Dharma Dialogue, a 20 minute sharing from me that’s on the web site and available to anybody online. In the December Dialogue I spoke about the idea of awakening, that we are all here to awaken, and yet at another level we are already awake. We all have the nature of awakened mind, but it has not yet fully become manifest. So, you are here in incarnation to help manifest that nature and bring it out into the world.

Some beings, like Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha, were born not yet awake and awakened in the incarnation. He’s a wonderful model for us of the possibility to fully awaken. Some beings like Jeshua came here fully awake, and yet he was still human. He still knew body pain, knew emotions, but he did not need to enact them.

I said in the December Dialogue that I would speak a bit about my experiences with Jeshua as an awakened being. In some of the stories you’ve heard, after the told story drew to a close and I was still sitting there with Jeshua, I had the opportunity as I walked with him to say, “How did you do that? What was happening for you” as this or that event occurred? At that point I was not yet fully awake, but he gave me great insight into the nature of this awakened mind.

What do I mean by awake? Knowing the true self. Knowing who you really are, beyond the ego beyond all inner and outer forms. Knowing the radiant essence of yourself. The rest is clothing. It’s beautiful clothing, or sometimes it’s angry and confused clothing. But when you peel it all off, there is an essence, the radiant spirit, that you have forgotten in the busyness involved with all the externals.

When you live from that essence, it is very different because the deepest truth— not your truth but THE truth, the truth of God/Goddess, the truth of love, can come forth. When it comes forth there is nothing more powerful. Love.

Let’s begin with a story that I have told many times. A group of us were walking down a road with Jeshua. There was a man ahead of us with a very overburdened donkey. He was beating the donkey, who could barely lift his feet. He was tottering, falling to his knees, beaten and staggering up again. I could see that Jeshua became angry. Let me phrase that differently. I could see that tension was arising in Jeshua but not being expressed as judgment or hostility.

He approached the man and said, “Your donkey cannot carry that. We’re going your way. Let us take these burdens. We can all carry them, and you can walk with your donkey to the nearest village.” The man was alarmed at first. He thought we were thieves and we would take all these things and run off. “No, we would walk right here next to you. But this poor donkey is going to die on the road here, and it hurts my heart. Let us help.” So we carried the burdens, a half dozen of us, each laden down with something.

We reached the nearest village. The man walked up what would be a tavern, tied the donkey’s reins around a post, and ran inside. Said, “Just drop the things here.” Again, I saw anger come up in Jeshua. He untied the donkey and brought it into the nearest stable, made sure it had food and water. He very gently tended to the donkey’s wounds, wounds the donkey had received from his beating, and left the donkey fed, comfortable, warm, and with great relief from its pain.

That’s the story that I’ve told you so far, how Jeshua did not enact his anger on this man, which would have scared the man away, which would have just led him to beat the donkey more. But could say, “That’s enough. Let us help.” Because of Jeshua’s great presence and kindness, that help could be accepted. So Jeshua was a master of his emotions. He didn’t let his anger get in the way. I repeat, he was human, even though he was enlightened. So, if conditions were present, anger might arise. But he saw anger as energy, not as something that would be used to do harm to others. Just anger.

Afterward we sat around our fire, and I asked, “Jeshua, what were you thinking? What were you feeling?” He said, “I almost lost my temper. I was feeling so much rage at his beating of this poor beast. So much sadness that people can be so self-centered and hateful.” But he went on to say, “I remember that this is why we have all come into the incarnation. We have come to watch this kind of anger, the anger I felt, the anger the man felt, and to transmute anger to compassion. To use that anger as energy that could bring forth love. And so, from the force of my anger, the power of my anger, I was able to offer all of us to carry the donkey’s burden. To get him safely to a stable. To take care of him. And in this way, to bring greater Light into the world”

“What will happen tomorrow, Jeshua, when the man again attempts to load the donkey?”

“Ahh!” he said, “I have bought the donkey! The donkey will accompany us tomorrow, and he will have no burdens.”

“But won’t the man just buy another donkey?”

“There are no more donkeys available in town. I have asked. He will be forced to sell his wares here, or, to find several donkeys, which may somehow appear when he is ready to distribute the load on 4 or 5 appropriate donkeys.”

I said, “Jeshua, are you saying you can make that happen?”

He said, “No, not I. Love will make it happen. When you hold yourself with the heart of love, and choose to manifest in accordance with love,” he said, “you could call it God, the Father, Goddess, Love, whatever you wish, it will support the arising of what is needed when it is needed, when you move fully resonant with that need. But when there is anger trying to push and manipulate, then the situation just crashes. Then nothing wholesome can happen.”

He did not say, “I am an enlightened Master and I know this.” He just spoke from his heart. He never once, in all our time together, said to me, “I am an enlightened Master.” Only, “I speak from the heart of the Father, the heart of Love. I speak from the heart of the Mother. I am Love.” He knew this without any doubt. The question for him, I think, was how to help others know it within themselves too. He understood that pushing people, forcing people with anger, with fear, trying to coerce people, would only scare them more into the ego self and distance them from this awakened core. How do we help people find that awakened core and live from it? How do we find that awakened core and live from it? It is not so hard. But it takes a real commitment. It takes knowing your highest intention to do no harm but only good. And that you do have the power to choose in that way, to choose not to harm.

Another story, and here perhaps we’re going to do something a little unusual and see several sides of the story. A few of you thinking, “Aaron, no new stories tonight?” Well, after 30 years of telling these stories, how many new stories can I have of Jeshua? But we can go deeper, and you’re ready to go deeper. If you want those thirty years of stories, look in the book 47 Stories for the brief version. Look in the Deep Spring archives’ transcripts for the full stories. There are three decades of them.

Once again, several of us were walking down a road with Jeshua, in a valley with hills rising on either side. We heard cries—the road going straight, a pathway leading up into the hill, and cries of pain coming from up there. Jeshua said, “I will go. Come with me if you wish.” He looked directly at me as he said that, so it was clear to me that he wished me to come, but he was also leaving the choice to me.

I followed him, and my son, Mark, was with me, a boy of about 12 years. As we climbed the hill and around a bend, a half mile, we found ourselves in a leper colony. Immediately I was terrified, because I had been taught that leprosy was highly contagious. Jeshua was completely comfortable. We walked in. The cries were coming from a woman in childbirth, but the baby was not presenting itself correctly. They were not able to bring the baby forth, so she was in much pain, and the midwife was not able to help.

Jeshua turned to me, knowing I was a shepherd. My name was Nathaniel. He said, “Nathaniel, you know how to help a birth. Will you see what you can do?” And he left it open for me to say, “I don’t think I can. I know how to birth sheep, not humans.” But he looked deep into my eyes, and it was clear that he knew I could do this, if I could step beyond my fear.

So, really, a sheep and a human birth are not all that different. I was able to reach my hand in and untangle the way the baby was presenting, literally to draw it out. One foot was tangled around its head; I pushed the foot back so the head flowed out, and the baby was born. I’m sure Jeshua was able to help release some of the woman’s pain, and that helped the smooth birth. Once I began, I was no longer afraid of leprosy. It was simply a woman who was suffering, a baby who would die. So, the baby was born, and I took the baby and handed it to Jeshua, who very gently wrapped it and handed it to Mark.

Fear came up. It’s okay for me; if I get leprosy, I get leprosy. But this is my beloved son, and he’s handing my son a baby, born of a woman with leprosy. What will happen to my son? Fear! Fear! And then the recognition: of course, Jeshua would not do anything to harm my son. And then another thought: but maybe it’s some kind of test? Who knows? And finally, surrender: whatever is for the highest good, I will trust this situation. And I smiled at Mark. All of this happening in an instant, all these running thoughts. I smiled at Mark and said, “Take the baby.”

That’s the basis of the story. There’s more in the archives, what happens afterward. A beautiful story, and I believe you can find it online[1]. When this is transcribed, I’ll try to find the rest of the story and piece it in. I don’t want to waste our time here tonight giving the rest of the story I’ve already told, because our focus tonight is a bit different.

I spoke about an idea with Barbara earlier, and she said she is willing to try this. The one who was my son in that lifetime, Mark, is the one who is Barbara now. She said she was willing for me to release the body to her briefly, and to answer a few questions. My question to her, when we discussed it this afternoon, was, I know she remembers this lifetime from her own present perspective. How did it feel being Mark? What sense of awake-ness, in yourself, in Jeshua, what helped you? That said, I’m briefly going to give the body to Barbara, and then I will take it back again.

(Aaron releases the body to Barbara; she takes a few minutes to settle)

Barbara: Thank you, Aaron. This is an experiment. We’ve never done this before. Aaron says, “You’re on.” Normally when Barbara consciousness is gone it’s pretty hard to come back into being Barbara. But this is not every-day Barbara consciousness; this is the consciousness that can remember this past life, that has worked at length with this past life. There is a softness here.

I/ Mark trusted Jeshua completely. If he said, “Hold the baby,” I would hold the baby. I knew he would never harm me. Clearly, if there were leprosy bacteria they could hurt me. But when I saw this past life, for me it was about seeing how we create whatever we create in ourselves through our fear. Fear brings contraction. When there’s no, I won’t say no fear, but when there’s presence with fear, one does not need to contract around the fear. Then the energy can flow smoothly. When the energy is flowing and open in me, it’s like walking past a field with grapes growing, and I can choose to reach over and pluck a grape, or not. I draw to me that which is wholesome. If I see a rotten grape, I don’t reach over and pluck it. It’s not from awakened mind, it’s just common sense, really. But for the most part we lose that free will choice because we get so lost in the patterns of, “I must do that. I can’t do this.” Fear, contraction, and so forth.

I think because Mark had no fear, because Mark so deeply trusted both Jeshua and my father, Nathaniel, I knew I would come to no harm. That does not mean I would not contract leprosy. If that was for the highest good then that could happen. And I also trusted that. So, it wasn’t, “Ah, I’m safe. I won’t contract leprosy.” It was a much deeper, “The soul is safe.”

Aaron is asking me now: what does this have to do with the awakened state? That’s a hard one, Aaron. You’re putting me on the spot. We didn’t pre-explore that piece of it earlier!

For me, the awakened state is living in the pure heart. It’s the pure heart of Jeshua, of the Buddha, of all the great masters, and it’s our pure heart. It’s the ability to live from that pure heart, and to trust that we’re capable to live from that pure heart. As soon as I say, “Ah, I can’t do that,” then I can’t. But when I know that I can, then I can.

Things may push at me. Here’s something that comes to mind, Aaron. I said we didn’t rehearse this part. When I say “rehearse”, I didn’t know what Aaron was going to be talking about, but he asked me if I would come in and talk about this lifetime with him and Jeshua. In ’04, when I had that very serious accident in the ocean, a near-death experience, unconscious, being tossed about by the waves, knocked to the ocean bottom, broken bones, severe injuries, there was a deep sense of trust. There was a strong, “I choose to live.” I understood I was being given the choice. It was made clear to me in that kind of tunnel of light I could move on and that would be okay. Or I could come back, and there was no guarantee what kind of body I would come back to. But it was my choice: I choose to go; I choose to live. And choosing to live, as I said, no guarantee what kind of body I’ll come back to. But I trust whatever is happening here, because the choice is made with love, is for the highest good. And it’s therefore safe, if I can put it that way, even if very unpleasant.

Aaron, is this all you wanted me to say? He is asking me, so you would not have said at that time, “’Jeshua is an awakened being,’ only that you loved Jeshua completely and trusted him?” That’s right, that’s what I would say. He taught me that love is always the Path, and he demonstrated that Path. Aaron says, enough, he will come back to the body. He says thank you to me.

(Aaron incorporates)

Aaron: Once again, I am Aaron. With thanks to Barbara for her very fine mediumship skills to shift out of the body and to shift back into her body and then again, allow me back in.

I would not have said in those days that he was awake, either, because I as Nathaniel I had no conscious awareness of the Buddha or other awakened beings. I only knew Jeshua as love. I can just put it that way. I saw him so many times unwilling to take any action that would do harm to another. And yet, with the huge compassion to stand up and say no if Being A was trying to harm Being B. Not to say, “Oh, that’s okay; you can hit him.” — “NO.” What’s the difference between anger and a strength born of truth? “No, you may not harm another.” It doesn’t have to be said with anger. It’s said with infinite compassion, knowing the pain both beings are feeling. This was made easier for Jeshua to know because he did feel anger. He did feel confusion. He did feel fear. He understood these human experiences and he knew how to release them.

The awakened state. I’m going to read you something that I asked Barbara to print out. This comes from her private journals, probably 20 years ago. I am shortening it.

“What is enlightenment? Let us use the Buddha’s river. You cross and find yourself on a new shore. But immediately you realize that you’ve just set foot on land, that there is a whole world beyond. You are nowhere but at the beginning.”

You are all awake. You are nowhere but at the beginning, setting foot on that new shore and ready to walk that land of love. I cherish Jeshua because of his ability to model being love. Never once in all the time I spent with him did I see him act with malice. He acted with strength. Sometimes he acted in a way that might have seemed to be from anger. But it was never with the intention to do harm, only to help others wake up to the results of their own choices, and to make more wholesome choices.

A child had stolen something in the marketplace. The law of those days was that if a thief was caught, his hand would be cut off. This was a young child, 5 or 6 years old. People grabbed the thief, pulled the loaf of bread away. “Thief! Thief!” They were about to strike this child, and some were saying, “Cut off her hand!” Why would a 5 or 6-year-old be alone in the marketplace? Jeshua came in, very clear, very strong, and said, “NO. Let her be. I will pay for the bread.”

After people settled down a bit, he asked her, “Why are you here alone? Where is your family?” And she was scared, a young child. “Why are you taking bread?”

‘“The mother is dead. I live with the father. My father fell off a ladder. He cannot walk. He will starve. I can bring him water, but I have no food for him.”
“Take us to your father.” So, we walked for over a mile, down back roads and paths, and to the house where the father was propped up, just head resting on a cushion, sitting on the ground, covered with a blanket, with a broken leg. This was the best this 6-year-old daughter could manage.

Jeshua then was angry. He turned to the people who had accompanied him and said, “Did no one notice that this girl, whom you must have seen in your village before, was alone? Did no one think to ask where the father was?” And they looked ashamed.

He asked the men, “Who will take care of this man and this child?” A skilled person came forth to help set the leg. They helped to load the man and the daughter on a cart. Someone offered their home and the man and child were brought there, where they would be cared for. Jeshua was careful not to build on their shame, but to empower them. Now that you have made this error, what can you do? How can you make this right? And so many people wanted to make it right, so many stepped up. People came to take care of the man’s sheep in the pasture, his other animals, his gardens. People helped reroof a piece of the house that he had been thatching when he fell and broke his leg. The whole town joined in to take care of this man. It strengthened the town. He did not shame them, although they felt ashamed at first, but used their feelings to give them power and remind them, “You can use this incident to do good.”

What is the nature of the awakened being, as evidenced here? My experience is that Jeshua could see the big picture. He could see the man’s desperation, needing to get the roof thatched before the bad weather closed in. His pain and fear after falling, to the point of sending his daughter to find food. He could see the people’s anger, because they had been taken advantage, time and time again through their lives. “You will not steal from me!” “Ah, but will you give freely?” “Yes.” So helping them to see that they had the choice to give freely, and how it empowered them; how it empowered the whole community. The whole village came together and began to look around them at who else was needy in that village. People began to give gifts to others, gifts of material goods and of time and energy. Everyone began to prosper because there was a free flow of energy and of love. All this based on the giving of one awakened being.

From his awakened state he could see the big picture and understand what was needed, but he did not ever try to push things. He never said, “You should do this, you should do that,” but, “What will be done?” Letting people come forth on their own, from their hearts. Awakened nature has this heart of generosity and of broad seeing.

Now, looking at the clock, it’s close to 8pm. I’m going to pause here for a few minutes, let you stretch, and then invite Jeshua to come in. I’ll step out of the picture and bring in Jeshua…(They arrange for Jeshua to sit on a high stool where he seems most comfortable)

(break; then Jeshua incorporates)

Jeshua: All these entities are jumping in and out of the body! It gets a bit humorous, I suppose… I like to see my audience! (people adjust their seats so Jeshua can see) That’s better. Doesn’t feel right to have my back turned to some of you at the campfire.

You have called me Jeshua. It brings me much joy to be here with you, to share this evening with you. I’m going to touch on Aaron’s topic, but also shift the focus a bit. You come together to celebrate what you think of as my birthday, the birthday of Jeshua, whom you call the Christ. What does Christ mean? An awakened one. You are all awake, all of you. Every single one of you is awake and alive and radiant. You are so beautiful! But you keep yourselves in a dark hole. Why do you want to do that? You are awake! Don’t celebrate my birthday, alone. Fine, celebrate my birthday; it brings me joy that you do so. But celebrate your own birthday too, your own birthday as awake beings. Don’t hold yourself in darkness. It is not what you came for, nor why I came. I came to remind you that you are light and you are love. You are perfect. Not to hold yourselves small and diminish yourselves.

My apologies to those online. (Jeshua has been walking around the room looking into people’s eyes, and not at the camera) I love you all. Thank you for being with us today. My deepest love. My heart is with you.

I will sit down again. This body’s balance is imperfect. Always perfect, and yet imperfect. The human with the distortions, and the essence of you is always perfect. How could it be otherwise?

Aaron asked me earlier, would I speak a bit about what it means to be awake. Aaron is a bit more eloquent than I am. He knows the philosophical language, and so on. But I can speak well from my heart.

When I was a boy, I knew why I had come. I knew before the birth, and I knew from the time the mind was old enough to form thoughts. But it was frustrating for the boy-child, Jeshua. I understood, when I say who I was, not special or different from anyone else, but that I was a son of the Father, a child of the Mother, an awakened being. But here I was in a human body, and though I was previously fully awoken in a prior lifetime and in the outer planes, being here in a human body was hard. There was body pain, there was emotional pain. I would fall and skin my knee and anger would come at the rock on which I fell. Somebody would say harsh words to me and anger would come.

At those times I moved into a kind of separation from myself; Jeshua, the awake being—whose name is not Jeshua; that is only my name in that lifetime—but that one who I was, who I am, and what seemed like a split into the human who felt pain and anger and confusion. I had blessed teachers, my mother and father and others, who did not teach me so much as to remind me: be the heart and love that you are, always. Keep coming back to that love.

There was a story that I believe Aaron has told. When we boys were throwing stones and, not realizing there was a bird there, I threw my stone and hit a bird. I heard the squawk, peep, and saw it fall to the earth. I did not aim at the bird but, nevertheless, I hit the bird. I felt enormous shame. I brought the bird to my mother. What can I do? It appeared to be dead. But there was the tiniest breath of life. And she said, “Hold it, Jeshua. Hold it and love it. See it flying away. Know it as whole and complete.” So, I sat there for several hours, until it had begun to flutter its wings a bit, move its head, breathe more fully. And finally, it soared into the sky. This was an important lesson for me. If you believe you can, you can. Not you but the power that is within you, the divine power. That core of love within you can accomplish anything. I did not save the bird. The memory of it’s true self as love, and the determination to live that love, knowing it could do so, saved the bird.

But so many of you do not believe that, and you keep yourselves into a small, dark place. Aaron spoke last month, I believe, responding to a question, what is sin? He said, let’s call it S-I-N, sinking into negativity. Yes, I came to help people to cease that sinking into negativity. I did not come to save you from sin, I came to remind you of your power to step out of that negativity, to be the power and the light. It is said of me, “He is the light.” You are the light— you, and you, and you, and you. (looking in people’s eyes) You are the light. Why do you doubt?

I believe you doubt because of the heavy emotions. But these heavy emotions are not given to you as burden. These emotions are a gift, because each time you feel fear, greed, anger, pride, jealousy, impatience or any other strong and heavy emotion, it comes as teacher. If you will pause and say, “Thank you. Thank you, teacher,” it changes everything, because it reminds you that the heart, the pure radiance of you is in control, not the ego.

I came to remind you that you are not the ego self. If not the ego self, what are you? What are you? What are you? (looking at people) You know the answer. ( people saying light, love) Light! And Love. Thank you. You do know the answers.

As you celebrate my birthday, please remember you are the light of the world. You are the love of the world. You. It is only your fear that tries to convince you otherwise, and then it diminishes your capacity to be that light and love. Light! Love! You are that! Please be it!

I will spend a few minutes answering questions.

Q: In the story about the baby, why did you hand the baby to Mark and not to anybody else?

Jeshua: I handed the baby to Mark because Nathaniel was my dear friend and I knew he was afraid. And I knew he had to face that fear and come through it. I was not testing him; I was reminding him to come through the test and trust, to open to the innate trust in his heart. It was very beautiful to see the tension in him fade away. It took a few moments, but then he knew. And he did not know, “Oh, Mark is safe. Mark will not contract leprosy.” He knew, “Thy will be done. It is safe. Whatever most needs to happen will happen and will be for the highest good.”

I would add here that it was Nathaniel and Mark that had come up the road with me. Mark was standing beside me. This was also his opportunity to trust and let go. If it had been someone else, there might have been a different scenario to the story. Others?

Q: What is the best way to help people remember they are love and loved, when they are in great fear?

Jeshua: To love them. To cherish them. If judgment arises, to observe judgment arising, whether it is judgment of yourself or of them, and try not to become caught in the story of the judgment. Have compassion for the self for the arising of that judgment. Love returns. It is never gone, just temporarily out of sight, so you can simply ask, in this moment, where is love?

Sometimes it’s very hard to love people. I know in my life as Jeshua there were times when it was hard to love people. I had to remind myself that I had a purpose for being in the incarnation, which was to diminish fear on this earth and to enhance love; and that the choice was always mine, in every moment, to take the words or actions that would thusly enhance love and diminish fear. If I chose otherwise, I was not living my purpose and I was doing harm.

We must be gentle with ourselves. Sometimes there is so much emotion that one lashes out. And then one can only pause, notice what’s happening, and ask forgiveness.

Q: Are you worried about our world? There seem to be so many terrible weapons, and people with so much anger. We’re worried; are you worried?

Jeshua: Am I worried about the world and all the negative things that seem to be happening? Everything plays out as it needs to. You do with Aaron that pushing arms exercise. You push, they push. You push, they push, until you realize it’s time to back up from pushing. To open the energy field, make space for the push and let it flow through.

Your world is like the seesaw on a fulcrum. More and more highly positively polarized beings are taking incarnation. As they do so, more and more negative beings are trying to push the other way. You will keep holding the space until they back off and learn that they cannot push. They cannot force you to sin, to sink into negativity. But fear empowers negativity.

As you understand the power and are willing to hold your power, to live your power, to say no with love, eventually they will back away. I cannot predict how much destruction must come before that happens. It depends on you. If enough of you are able to hold your loving hearts present, then love will prevail. Love will eventually prevail, but it may not prevail on this planet if you destroy the planet. I don’t think you will, but you have free will.

It takes a great deal of love and of faith. Faith is an odd word. Faith in what? Truly faith in the power of love. Faith in the essence of love that is the foundation of this Earth, and the power you all have to bring forth that love, to hold that love in the world. It is not faith in something external to you; it is faith in your own divine essence, and knowing that that same divine essence is in everything, including those you deem to be most negative in the world. They also have the heart of love. The question really is how do we awaken it. It is not always easy to awaken it. So, you must be gently persistent, again and again.

Each time you meet someone else in what seems to be conflict, remember: this is also the awakened one. This is also God/Goddess, Buddha and Christ. This is also a divine and loving being who can wake up and know the truth of its being.

Negative polarity comes to a dead end at the end of 6th density, and then it must reverse itself, all the way back. To move into 2nd, maybe even 1st density positive polarity and start again. Each time you come to what seems to be a conflict with somebody who seems very negative, you are in fact holding open a door for that person. If you can be gentle, patient, loving, but clear and firm, you can open the door, and they may begin to see that they do need to reverse the polarity. There are billions of you capable of doing this kind of inviting. And if enough of you do it with love, everything can reverse itself very quickly.

One more question…

Q: What did you mean by the outer realms or areas? You said you were on the outer realms, and had another enlightened lifetime.

Jeshua: I did not experience enlightenment in the terms that you think of it here on Earth, as a human. I experienced it on light and energy realms, where at first I did not know myself as light, but sank into darkness. The energy that I was diminished itself, or lashed out, and I woke up to the effect that either extreme had, and began to know that I could trust the essence of light that I am and that everything is, and could live that light. That, in a sense, was my awakening. Then I had to test it on material realms. That was long before the Jeshua lifetime. Does that answer your question?

Q: What do we do when we run into, meet evil spirits?

Jeshua: There are no evil spirits. There are entities that are deeply sunken into negativity. On the one hand, you say, “No, I will not dialogue with you. No.” Because you are not yet strong enough to hold that dialogue with what seems to be strong negativity. As you become more mature and stronger and you ask for help, I am always glad to help you, and Aaron and other masters of light. As you become ready, then you can begin to offer increasing loving energy to them. If they’re willing to receive it, fine. If they are not, they will back away. Do not try to do this yourself. Make sure you have support.

Now, as we close here, there is a well-known prayer, very misquoted in your Bible, that is ascribed to me. And I would like to ask you to pray it with me, if it feels appropriate to your own heart. I’m going to say the words, say a line and then ask you to repeat that line with me.

Beloved Father/Mother/Cosmic Birther,

We bless thy name.

May thy kingdom of light and love become manifest on Earth

As it is in the heavenly realms,

and in accordance with the vision of the Infinite Creator

of which we are all a part.

Nourish us this day, Father/Mother/Beloved

With the light and love which is our sustenance.

Forgive us when we descend into dark realms, into negativity and distortion.
Help us deliver ourselves from sinking into such negativity.

Help us to forgive ourselves when we enter into distortion

And to forgive those around us who thusly enter into distortion.

Help us always to know the Light, so we do not become lost in darkness.

Thy kingdom is of love and of light.

Help us to live in that love and light

And to know these as the essence of everything.

Now and forever, Amen.

Thank you for being here with me tonight. And now please go and enjoy your celebration. And my thanks to my brother Aaron. My love to you, I am Jeshua. My love to those out there, as I am out there! I delight in this technology. We’re somewhere interweaving in ether-space— or however you term it.

I’ll release the body to Barbara… (is handed another question from someone on-line)

Are light and love the same thing? Light is an expression of love. Love is the core, the unconditioned essence. It expresses itself in many ways, such as spaciousness, as joy and as light. Those are three primary expressions. Aaron’s new book, The Path of Clear Light – can somebody bring a copy in from the table, please? – Aaron’s new book explains this in clear detail. Love is the heart. That love sometimes is freely expressed and sometimes is bound up. When it’s freely expressed, light expresses with it. This expression is the Path of Clear Light. When the Path is open, when the heart is open, light expresses, and spaciousness and energy. When the heart is shut down, nothing can move through. Aaron’s Path of Clear Light is a beautiful delineation of the path to knowing yourself as light and love, and living from that light and love.

Thank you, I’ll release the body to Barbara. My blessings and love to you all. May all the joys and love in your heart pour forth this season to bring peace and love to all, to yourself, your friends, your neighbors, and those who you consider enemies, too. To all. There are no enemies, there’s only love. I love you. Good evening.

(session ends)

Below are longer versions (2) of Nathaniel and Jeshua at the leper colony from 2010 and 2011 Christmas Stories, from the archives:

Aaron: Accompanying him once, we were walking in the countryside when we heard a cry. He immediately swerved off the main path and up into the hills from whence he heard the cry. He motioned to us that we could stay down there or follow him, as we wished.

Most of us followed him. As we came up into the hill just a short distance, we heard that cry again and again. We knew that there were lepers in these hills, and some of the group stopped as the way got steeper and the cry came closer. I walked with Jeshua.

There was a leper woman giving birth and the baby was stuck in some way, not presenting itself in a way to be eased out. The woman’s mother and other women were with her but nobody knew how to help her.

They were all lepers and leprosy was thought to be contagious so I was afraid. Jeshua turned to me and said, “Nathaniel, you’re a shepherd. You know how to bring forth a lamb that is stuck in the birth canal. Can you help her?” At first I just wanted to flee, I was terrified. Me, touch this leper woman? And then I realized my beloved brother Jeshua would never put me in a situation in which I would be harmed. I had to expand that to the broadest level of harm. If I contracted leprosy, then he knew that that was for my highest good, and it was safe even to become a leper, if that was what was necessary. I also knew he could birth the child. If he was asking me, there was a reason. So at that point there was a release of fear and hesitation. I was given hot water and able to wash, and then able to help by inserting my hand to shift the baby in the right way so that it could be eased out. The mother pushed it out, and it was a beautiful, whole baby.

They invited us to have some hot beverage with them and then we walked back down the path to the rest of our comrades. Before we left, he took so many of their hands and spoke to them, walked around simply extending his love to each one.

Several weeks later, returning past that way, he said to me, “Let’s go up that hill and see how that baby is.” So we climbed up the hill. The others again waited below. As we approached, what I saw astonished me, but it should not have surprised me. The first to greet us was a woman I had noticed before in an advanced stage of leprosy, and her whole body was healing. Others were healing and some fully healed, including the mother of this child.

They asked him, “Did you do this?” They had known who he was, that he was the one called by various names, the Teacher of Love, the Teacher of Righteousness, as he was called. “Did you do this?” He said, “No, your own love and faith did it. I do not heal; God heals. And when you invite healing and trust your own inner capacity to heal, it can happen.”

We spent the night there. They feasted us. It was a joy to hold this baby and to see the radiant mother, literally growing new fingers; her hands, her body, healing. But what was most important to me of that memory was his saying, “No, I did not heal you,” because his work was not to make himself important but to help each human know its own divinity and its own power to co-create wholeness and love. The essence of his message was to empower through pointing out each one’s own divinity.

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Aaron: At another time, traveling with him, we heard a voice cry out from the hills above the path on which we walked, and the adult Jeshua being who he was, immediately turned up the narrow path to see from where the cry came. I followed him and there were several others with us. My son Mark was also with us.

We came through some rock crevices and around a bend into a somewhat open area where there were some caves; it was a small leper colony. There was a young woman who was a leper and whose cry we had heard, giving birth. People were trying to help her but nobody really knew what to do as the baby was not presenting itself in the correct way.

Jeshua immediately turned to me. I was a shepherd. I knew how to birth lambs, even lambs that are in a difficult presentation. He said, “Will you help?” I had hung back; I was afraid. I did not want to touch this, what I thought of as, unclean woman. Jeshua asked for hot water, soap, clean cloths. I felt he would never lead me directly into danger so I decided it was safe. Part of me was afraid and the deeper part of me trusted him.

I don’t think he needed me to do what I did. Inviting me, asking me to help was for me, not for him or for the woman giving birth, but it helped me to trust and move past my fear and simply act in service, to not see a leper but simply a woman giving birth. So using my skills I was able to literally reach in and correct the mal-presentation and help draw the baby forth.

He walked around to speak with all the people, took their hands, offered an embrace. They asked us to share their meal. I didn’t want to eat; there was still fear. I was especially afraid for my son. But Jeshua joyfully sat down with them and shared their food. How could I not join him?

It was dark by that time so we slept the night there, saw this new mother in the morning, now comfortable and holding her infant. The infant of course had no sign of leprosy at this point and the mother said to Jeshua, “Please take him. I do not want him to die.” And Jeshua said, “He will not die. See his perfection. He is healthy.”

We went on and several weeks passed as we traveled. Coming back that way on that same trail, Jeshua said, “Let us go and see how they are.” These had been people who were quite sick, maimed, showing all the disfiguration of leprosy. As we came up the path, what greeted us was a fully different picture. There were still some signs of leprosy, people who had lost digits on their hands had not re-grown them, but much of the scarring of the skin and other such signs of the disease were gone. People seemed radiant, much healthier.

This mother came forth with her now 3-week-old baby, held him out to Jeshua. “You’re right,” she said, “he’s perfect.” And her disease was clearly healing– not fully healed but healing. I asked him later, “Did you do this?” because of course he had the capacity to heal. He said, “No, I do not heal. God heals. That of God within each being that comes to know its own perfection, when that perfection is reflected into it by those who see it and speak with it and relate to it, when that knowing of your own perfection is awakened – that allows you to heal. These people were reflecting their own disfigurements and disease to each other, feeling a sense of despair and helplessness. All I did was to remind them, ‘You are divine, you are perfect. Don’t be the leper, be the radiant human being who is at a passing phase in which this disease is manifesting and then let it go.’ ”

So they were all healing. He awakened that in them, he reminded them of their truth. This was the core of his work. When he said such as, “The only way to the Father is through me,” he did not mean through me, this personal man that you see, but through the Christ consciousness, by which I mean simply awakened consciousness, that I AM, Buddha nature, that which is awake. When you know that you are that, how can you think of yourself as anything less? So when he said that, “The way to the Father is through me,” he meant, through knowing this awakened consciousness, this divinity that you are, and living it.

His message has perhaps even greater meaning on Earth now than it had 2000 years ago because you are all within this transition to the expression of divine man, to the highest expression of your being, non-dual consciousness, unconditional love. This is the future of your Earth. I know there are terrible wars and brutality and despair throughout the Earth. You ask me, “Aaron, how can you speak of unconditional love when people are so brutally killing each other and with so much hatred?”

I do not deny that there is strong negative polarity on the earth. That which is strongly negative, it exists. It is not ultimate evil, there is no such thing as ultimate evil, but it is that which is deeply entrenched in negativity or what we might call service to self, deeply contracted. It fears the light, it fears love, and it fights with all its might to hold its own negative contracted self-serving space. It adheres to the old myths: “Only our religion is the path to salvation. No other religion. Only our country. Only our beliefs.” That old archaic consciousness is the voice of fear. The only answer is love, compassion, and kindness. But compassion knows how to say no. It doesn’t say, “Walk all over me; kill me.” It says no, but it doesn’t hate while it says no.

This insight is what your Earth so badly needs right now. All of you are here learning this lesson, how to relate to that which manifests as negative around you, with lovingkindness and compassion that’s able to say no to negativity but without hating the negativity. When enough of you learn how to do this, it’s going to bring about the change you seek. This Earth has the potential to be the Eden that was promised, to be a place of true peace and plenty. That which you seek cannot coexist with the perpetuation of fear and separatist consciousness. Each of you have the work to find this nondual awareness in yourselves. Each of you have 1000 opportunities every week to relate with kindness to negativity, and you’re not going to do it perfectly. Do it as best you can.

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[1] Two versions of this complete story are posted at the end of this transcript

On the Presidential Election; Gratitude; Bobbleheads and Sharing Space in the Home

Aaron: My blessings and love to you all. I am Aaron. Barbara has asked me several times during the day how best to understand this election. How did we have the results we have for this election, and why? What are we to do with it?

Let us begin with a prayer. Each day we consecrate ourselves to the light, and to service to the highest good of all beings. But we acknowledge we are blind, and we don’t always know what the highest good is; therefore all we can do is work from our hearts, aspiring to the highest good with trust that if we hold this intention we will be led on a clear path. Through our gathering here, I suppose about 18 of you gathered here in this circle tonight, we all consecrate our hearts, our bodies, our minds, our energy to the highest good of all beings. And we acknowledge that we walk blindly. We pray for loving guidance in whatever form it comes. We pray for the equanimity and faith to understand eventually we will see the way clearly. Eventually we will come out to where we intended.

There’s a quotation from Gandhi that I asked Barbara to download this morning so I could read it to you.

“When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love has always won. There have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time they can seem invincible. But in the end they always fall. Think of it, always.”

This is not to call anybody a tyrant or murderer. This is only to remind you that what you see as positive is just one side, one view. A core of our dharma teaching is not to be attached to views. We think we know the way, but sometimes we don’t know the way. Consider the first three of the Tiep Hien precepts from Thich Nhat Hanh’s “Order of Interbeing.”

Do not be idolatrous about or bound to any doctrine, theory or ideology. All systems of thought are guiding means, not absolute truth.

Know that the knowledge you presently possess will change and is not changeless, absolute truth. Avoid being narrow-minded and bound to present views. Learn to practice non-attachment from views in order to be open to receive others’ viewpoints. Truth is found in life and not only in conceptual knowledge. Be ready to learn throughout your entire life and to observe reality in yourself and in the world at all times.

Do not force others, including children, to adopt your views, whether by authority, threat, money, propaganda, or even education. However, through compassionate dialogue, help others renounce fanaticism and narrowness

Imagine this situation. I’ve come with several carloads of you to a vast woods, on the far side of which is an ocean shore. We have been told that a large boatload of refugees is coming in a ship and will be dropped of somewhere just offshore. If they are to survive they need our help, so we must get to the shore. But there’s no clearly marked trail, and none of you have ever been here before. To make it more challenging, there is also, at another parking area, several carloads of people who are determined not to let these refugees land. They will not shoot, they will not kill you, they will just do everything that they can to block your access.

So we start out together walking through the woods. In the beginning there’s one clear trail. But soon there’s a fork. Right, left, which way shall we go? Which way, right or left? (Group: Right! Left! Right!) Right! Left! Here’s a tiny deer trail that goes straight ahead, maybe it’s that one. Some people say, “This right-hand trail looks much better used. This must be the correct way.” Who knows if it’s going to the shore? It’s better used, but where is it going? “This is the way.” Everyone in this group wants to get to the shore to help the refugees, but some people say we go right, some people say we go left, and one or two even say the tiny deer trail. The group decides it will stay together, for now, so we go right.

It’s going to be a 4 or 5 hour walk to the coast. For a while it seems to be going in the right direction, and then it swerves around. Some people say, “Let’s go back to start,” others say, “Let’s cut through the woods. I can see which direction we should go.” Many opinions here. No one is right. Nobody has ever been here before. No one knows the correct way. Some people become angry. “You’re getting us lost! You should have gone left from the start!” “How do you know? You’ve never been here before.” “Well this way isn’t correct, so that way must be.” Opinions, beliefs.

It’s important to keep in mind that everyone wants to reach the coast and help the refugees, and to get there ahead of the other group that wishes to block the refugees. As soon as you have two people you’re going to have different opinions. Some seem more wholesome than others: “Follow a clear trail so we don’t get scratched, so we don’t fall.” Others may seem more dramatic: “Forge through the woods!” There’s not a clear path to the goal. The ones who want to forge through the woods, they may even become very angry and start screaming at the ones who went right, telling them how bad they are, what idiots they are. And the ones that went right, they’re saying, “Keep the faith. Yes, I know it’s turning away, but I bet it will swing back.” And to the other forge-through-the-woods group, “You’re the idiots.” Anger.

My dear ones, you came into the incarnation knowing it was going to be so. If you had wanted it to be simple and clear-cut, you would have not come into this heavy density earth plane. If you did not want opposition, you would have stayed in a heavenly realm with clear connection to your guides, with heavenly beings around you, with so much love. With a deep sense of what you could trust, that it’s right there, present with you.

Think of a little child. Now the two-year-old, when you say, “This,” they’ll say, “That.” But basically in a dangerous situation the two year olds trust the mother or father. If you’re walking in the woods with a two-year-old, the child’s not going to say, “We should go this way.”— “Mommy, which way? Daddy, which way?” They trust. But you are not two year olds, and you came into the incarnation to develop your own free will choice, which can seem like a great gift or a heavy burden. That free will choice, “I choose,” who is this I? Who chooses? The small self, the ego, fear? Or is it wisdom, love, clarity? Who chooses? So in the context of the earth incarnation you have the opportunity to practice watching contraction and fear without acting it out in your daily life.

You have just had a very huge presidential election, the country seeming more divided than it has ever been before. Some of you simply cannot understand: how can there be so many people who supported this other candidate? And actually, I think for all of you gathered here, the candidate of your preference won the popular vote. How can this other candidate be elected?

The thing is, this candidate was elected, and the fact that there were almost 50% of the voters supporting this candidate should say to you there’s something to which you have not been paying attention. There’s something vital to be learned here.

So let’s take us back. We really want to get to those refugees. The path has wound around for an hour, and we seem to be going further and further from our destination. Some people become angry and say, “No, we’re going this way!” You say, “Well I want to keep going this way.” “No, we’re sticking together. You’ve got to follow me.” Here we are, one nation, indivisible. We stick together. We have one president.

If you follow, gritting your teeth and filled with resentment, you really can’t learn anything, can you? But when you follow willing to engage in dialogue with those walking along with you, asking, “Where do you think this will take us?”, really open to the possibility that something new might happen, willing to say no when this new path takes you up to a steep cliff and they say, “Well let’s just climb down,” — “No, I won’t do that. We could get killed. No.” But insofar as the path seems reasonable and with harm to none, instead of saying, “This guy is crazy,” can you say, “Let’s see what’s happening here? Why did all these 49% of the voters support the other candidate? What are they experiencing that I don’t understand? What pain, what fear, what lack?”

Sometimes you have to go a little bit this way and then a little bit that way and then back this way and then back that way in order to find your way. If you move back and forth in that way smoothly and openheartedly, eyes open, ready to say no with love when that’s appropriate, you can learn, and you can engage in dialogue. But when you must be hauled along, angry, refusing to engage in any dialogue, refusing to listen, how can you learn?

I would say every person in this country wants something specific, which is personal peace and happiness, their own well-being. For most people, they’ll extend that out to their family and their friends. Some people will extend that even to a wider audience: their communities, the people like them, of their race, their religion, their culture. And a few will expand it out to all beings. But when people believe, “My needs won’t be met unless we do this,” they’re coming from a place of so much fear. And unless you can hear their fear, you cannot attend to their fear and help to find solutions that work for everyone. Then it just becomes a pushing match.

When there is clarity, we all want to be happy, we all are suffering, we are all confused, we are all in pain, and we begin to open our hearts to each other, then there can be healing. If the candidate that I assume most of you supported had won, the, what I sometimes call the loyal opposition, the most angry of those who supported the president-elect, who seem to you to be much more immersed in anger and service to self, some of them would have lacked the ability to open doors. There might have been violence. At best they would have sulked, complained, refused to participate, judged, and there could not have been healing. You, my dear ones, came into the earth awake, knowing that it was going to be hard work. I’m not saying that none of this loyal opposition did, but some of them came in with a much lower consciousness and really don’t remember who they are or why they’re here. You who understand that, you are not only light but lighthouses, beacons shining, holding that beacon of light open to others. You understand that you do have the option literally to hear others and to help all the angry people of this country, the hurting people of this country, to feel heard. You don’t have to agree with them, you have to hear them, because as soon as they start to feel heard, so much of their negative stance, grounded in fear, will fall away.

There’s the beautiful line from the Dhammapada, from the Buddha: “You are what you think. With your thoughts you make the world.” What are these thoughts? Think a pure thought and love and light will follow you. Think an impure thought and suffering and pain will follow you.

You all have a wonderful opportunity here truly to change your country and your world by opening your hearts to the present situation and asking not, “How will my needs be met?”, but, “What can I do to serve?” How can I best literally serve others and attend to, take care of the suffering in this country and in the world? No, it’s not going to be easy, and I think this is one of the challenges. Many of you are feeling exhausted, and you’d like it to be easy. “If only the election went the way I wished it would go, then I could lie back and rest, continue to ignore all those disenfranchised people, to pretend they don’t exist. I could follow the wonderful, or at least the adequate, leader that I wished for. I wouldn’t have to struggle. I could close my eyes, blinders. Unless there was violence I could somewhat ignore the degree of pain.” But these people coming to rallies and shouting hate-filled epithets, bullying others, filled with prejudice, this response doesn’t come to you unless you are suffering. It’s a cry for help. And you have the opportunity not to be some kind of a savior on a mountaintop but simply a human being with an open and loving heart, literally able to hear, to attend to suffering, to help.

I said I felt many of you wanted it to be easy, and part of your suffering right now is, “Oh, what are we going to do? And Aaron is telling me I’m going to have to work hard to hear others that I don’t want to hear.” So it seems like a huge chore, a burden to you. “I don’t want this. I’m exhausted. I just want it all to go away.” Well yes, I know that. But you did volunteer for the incarnation. Nobody forced you here. At some level you knew you were going to have to work hard.

Picture yourself in the situations of people throughout history who have had dictators, bullies, really negative people governing them, even commanding them to do things that were not acceptable to them, under threat of death. You live in an amazing country. No matter what you think of the president-elect, there is a Senate, there is a Congress. He cannot bully his way through. He may make it hard. He may set up a lot of obstacles. He may destroy programs or things that you hoped for, that you’re going to have to wait for and campaign for again. But you also need to trust the system and your ability peacefully to make yourself heard. And you need to trust your capacity to say no with compassion if somebody sends you out to do something that is totally unacceptable to you. Nobody can make you hate others or bully others. Nobody can make you think less of people of a different religion, race, sexual orientation or nationality. That’s what’s in your heart. If it comes up, it’s because it’s already there, at least the seed of it.

So here we come to a third part of this. For many of you, when you look at the president-elect and some of his followers, you see the shadow side of the world, people filled with hate and prejudice, people filled with fear and willing to bully others, to mock others, to intimidate others. A very central spiritual lesson that I know we’ve talked about many times is that when somebody really bothers you, it’s because there’s something in that person that you’re afraid could be in yourself. I’m not saying it is manifesting in yourselves. But when a person of political power or any sort of power expresses prejudice to others, is there anybody in this room who cannot say that at some time or another you have felt prejudiced against another person, opinionated against another person? I’m not talking just of racial or sexual prejudice or whatever, but any sort of prejudice. This person who comes in with a teased bouffant hair style, and you look at them and say, “That’s weird!” That’s a kind of prejudice, a kind of judgment. You’re not going to push that person away, but if there’s a luncheon and people sitting 3 and 4 to a table, you may very seriously try to find a different table. This person is sitting alone, other tables are filling up. She’s loud, you don’t like her hairdo, her clothes clash. It seems like she’s been drinking a bit, a lot of little things that offend you. Are you going to sit at her table? Who’s going to sit at her table?

Consider this president-elect and his supporters, why do they offend you? Yes, you disagree with some of his polices, but there is more. They mirror what you see as the shadow in yourself, and the potential for that to manifest. They are your teachers. On the one hand, you say no to them. If somebody tries to pass a law that is harmful to people, a clear no is needed, and you work with your Congress and representatives and whoever is appropriate to make sure this kind of law is not passed. Can you do it with love and not with fear? But we must also acknowledge the inner shadow.

There’s a teaching I’ve given here a number of times, one of the two stories of Milarepa. In the first story we simply serve our demons tea, and most of you have heard that story. The demons come in. They’re hideous, and Milarepa says, “Sit by my fire, have tea.” That’s a start. At that point we are still seeing a duality, me and the demon. “The demon is out there and I am here, and I’m going to invite him for tea; aren’t I nice?” But we start to realize as we mature that the demon is not only out there.

In the second Milarepa story, he comes back to his fire carrying this big load of wood on his back, and the demons have taken over his campsite. He’s appalled when he sees how many there are. They are making a big mess of everything, throwing food and clothing and utensils all over, making a terrible mess. So his first impulse is to grab one of his sticks of firewood and go after them, chase them away. He begins to do that and they laugh. He realizes this won’t work. “I’m just feeding them energy.” They love negative energy, they love fear and anger. So he sits down by his fire. He reflects after a while, maybe they’ve always been here and I’ve just never noticed them. I’ll just sit here a while and see what happens.

They become bored and most of them go, but there’s one big demon who remains. This fellow has huge, bulging eyes, fangs, an enormous mouth, a foul stench, and he follows Milarepa everywhere. This is a very hard practice. Milarepa walks up to him, looks in his eyes, puts his head in the demon’s mouth and says, “Eat me.” Do you understand that? “Eat me.” Dissolve the duality. If I see you as a demon, it’s the demon in myself that I’m seeing. And when I look at you and right there with the demon I see something beautiful, it’s the beauty in myself that I’m seeing. And we are one. “Eat me.” End the separation.

You are called upon at this time to find those with whom you disagree and say, “Eat me.” Really to dissolve the separation. This doesn’t mean that you must relinquish the wisdom and love of your heart. It means that you must recognize that right there with your own wisdom and love there is some negativity. And you cannot expect this other one to express his or her beauty, radiance, and love and relinquish their negativity unless you are willing to look deeply at your own negativity, the shadow side within you. This world of yours needs to heal together, knowing that all beings everywhere are suffering, all beings feel fear and pain. And also recognizing that some beings are, let us say of a much less mature consciousness, and those of you who are a bit more evolved in consciousness need to take care of the others the way a mother takes care of a two-year-old having a tantrum. The parent doesn’t smack the two-year-old or tell him how terrible he is. At some level the parent is able to take loving care of the two-year-old by holding him and saying, “No, shhh.” Because he recognizes how close he is to losing it, stomping his feet and yelling, right there with the two-year-old! But he’s determined not to do it.

If this whole world is to move deeper into this raising of consciousness, it needs to come from each of you. Each of you must honor that commitment that you made when you came into the incarnation to live with as much love as you are able, even when there is fear, anger, confusion, disappointment.

One of you asked me in an email this morning, “What if the president-elect engages in growing brutality, negativity, violence, retribution? How do we act?” The same way you act if he doesn’t. Say no with as much love as you can to anything that is negative. Listen deeply and try to understand where anything negative is coming from, even while you say no to it. Do the deep work in yourself to see where that negativity is reflected in you and release it within you so you’re not adding that energy to the world.

How do we say no with love? I read you a quote from Gandhi, a few minutes ago. Gandhi did an amazing job of saying no with love, and literally changed the world. Again, quoting the Buddha: “Hatred is never ceased by hatred. Only love ceases hatred.” How do you learn to love, no matter how negative the catalyst and how much it frightens you? How do you most fully express that love? Like the sun hidden behind clouds, how do you let that sun of Love emerge? How do you release the clouds and let the sun burn through them so that the true radiance that you are can emerge?

Many years ago Barbara and Hal, their children and her brother and his children were visiting her parents at their condo community in Florida. They were cooking at a group of grills around picnic tables available to the large condo community. The children had been playing in the pool and had come over to sit by the picnic table. The brother was cooking the meat. Another man used the next grill. Barbara was helping to get things ready when a man who was clearly drunk rode up on his bicycle, put his bicycle against the next table, blocking the way of the man cooking there. He also had children nearby. The man just put the bike in the way so the man turned to him and said, “Please move your bike. I can’t get to my food.” The man said, “I can put my bike wherever I want.” The man said, “No, I was here first, and this is my table and my grill,” and he went to pick up the bike and move it. The man with the bike picked up a big carving knife and said, “Put my bike down, now!” All the children watching were scared. What’s going to happen? They weren’t babies at this point but pre-teen and teen. So the man was menacing. One man with a knife, one man with a bike, holding it up, getting ready to throw the bike. What does one do?

Barbara’s brother simply walked up behind the man holding the knife, and grabbed his arm, immobilizing it. Now, he was 6’ 6”. It’s easy not to argue with a man who’s 6’ 6”. But he grabbed his arm firmly but not roughly and he said in the calmest voice, “You don’t want to do that.” With his other hand he reached around and said, “Give me the knife.” “You don’t want to do that. Give me the knife.” He was holding his arm tight, but he wasn’t menacing the man but talking to him in a very clear way, “No, you don’t want to do that. Give me the knife.” The man gave him the knife. The brother let go of the arm and said, “Come sit down at my table. I’ll move your bike for you.” He took the bike from the other man, put it down in a safe place. He had just finished cooking a hamburger. “Would you like a hamburger?” The man said no, but he sat there for a few minutes. Then he got on his bike and rode away.

Barbara asked her brother afterward, “Were you afraid?” And Bud said, “Yes, of course I was afraid. But I also knew that I could not give our children an example of violence being met with violence. That I needed to be very clear and say no, that I couldn’t walk away, and I couldn’t attack.” It was so clear that kindness said no. I use this as an example because Bud was afraid, yes. He was a man with a big knife. He could easily have tried to turn it on Bud, or used it, thrown it at somebody. You must say no to negativity. But if fear says no, you are simply bringing more fear into the world.

This is where I speak of the shadow in each of you, and your free will choice to enact that shadow, or not to enact that shadow. You came into the incarnation to practice free will choice of loving kindness, to do no harm, to support the evolution of consciousness on this earth. Are you going to do it or not? And here you have the, may I say it this way, gift of a very uncomfortable situation as teacher. Here’s the man with the knife, figuratively speaking. Are you going to scream and run the other way? How many are moving to Canada? Are you going to pick up your own knife and throw it at him? What are you going to do?

Let’s multiply this. Suppose it wasn’t just one man with a knife but he had three or four people with him, and they were all angry and they all picked up knives. What are you going to do? This is really a good metaphor for where your country is right now, maybe without knives, just fists, but anger and oppositionality. Where is healing to be found? It does start within yourself, by finding the shadow in yourself, the places where you’re deeply attached to your views to the point that you cannot hear another, and yet you expect another to hear your views and not to be attached to their own.

I’m not talking here about right view or wrong view, only oppositional views. Everybody is trying to get through that woods and attend the refugees. But people have different ideas of how that should happen and what should happen, and some of them with a much more self-centered idea of what should happen. You must absolutely say no to bullying, to hatred, to prejudice, to that which would do harm. Absolutely. The question is, what says no? Can you find the way to say no with loving kindness? When you do that, you’ve enormously escalated the raising of consciousness of this earth. You’ve opened enormous doors.

My talk tonight, two weeks before Thanksgiving, was to be on gratitude. After all the emails I received today, it was clear I needed to talk about the election. But let’s take it on to gratitude.

Imagine yourself in a situation where you’re feeling angry and impatient, and somebody in a very unskillful way walks up to you, looks at you, “Why are you being so angry? What a bully you are! You’re an idiot!” Can you feel yourself contracting with that? But when you pause and take a deep breath, you say, “Yes, I’ve been so caught in fear that I really have been bullying others, really have been caught up in my own views and not hearing others.” This person’s approach may not be skillful, but in that moment could I say, “Thank you, you’re right. I have gotten caught up in negativity. Thank you.”? I don’t have to explain myself or defend myself to this person. If I say, “Thank you, you’re right,” and he says, “Well I’m glad you see how awful you are. You’re such a stupid”— whatever—you can just reply, “I see that I’ve been unskillful. Thank you.” Eventually he’ll go away, and you can sit and reflect on the places where you were so caught up in your view that you were shoving others, unable to hear.

This loyal opposition comes as a teacher. And I can’t begin to tell you all the lessons that you may be offered. But learning the lessons begins with that simple, “Thank you.” Hard as it may be. “This is not what I wanted. It’s not what I thought was coming. Fix it! Change it!” — “Thank you.”

Bring your hands together, see how it feels. Big breath. Thank you. In this moment I will trust my life, and that the catalysts offered to me can lead me in a direction of growth, can lead all of us in a direction of growth and of love. Thank you.

Can you feel how that opens up some of the energy? I’m not saying there’s no more outrage and fear, just a little more space.

Now I want to do an exercise with you.(asks for 2 volunteers) I want you to imagine that I have a very fragile piece of crystal in here (Aaron holds a ball of thick socks) Take it carefully, but it’s well-padded— relax. Comfortable with it? It’s not that fragile, but if you drop it on a hard floor it will break. But you’re holding it, that’s fine. No problem. Two hands, two balls with crystals. Can you feel the increasing tension? Don’t drop it! (he keeps adding balls of socks)

Tension. Be careful not to drop it. I forgot to tell you: most of them have crystals in them, but one of them has a little bomb in it. If you drop it, BOOM! Breathing in, I am aware of the tension. Breathing out, I hold space for the tension.

This tension, this is the whole election result, everything involved that you really didn’t want. You wanted it to be easy. You want the next four years— “I can keep looking away. I don’t have to worry about all those people that are angry and disenfranchised. They live somewhere else. I can ignore it. I want to relax…” Can you feel the possibility to make more space? Just relax your arms. Don’t drop them, just hold them gently.

The next four years are going to ask you to hold a lot of balls. They’re going to ask you to work. But you have a choice whether you’re going to work tense or whether you’re going to work with some degree of spaciousness and ease. How am I going to do this? I do have a choice. How am I going to do it?

So now you may drop one or two balls. Not all, a few. Drop until you feel more comfortable with what you’re holding. Does it feel manageable now? All right. Manageable. Each of you will relinquish what feels unbearable to you, unmanageable to you, until you reach a point where you say yes, I can manage this much. And then when you’re carrying that much and I come along and say I’ve got one more and I really need somebody to carry it, you don’t have to volunteer. But if you feel you can do it, you do it. And then, thank you, you can put it back down, you can put them all back down. Thank you.

So part of what many of you are feeling today is a sense of, “Oh no! I can’t carry it all.” Well you don’t have to carry it all. Can you carry that one? Boom! Can you carry that one? How about you? (pause for exercise, handing out more balls?) Some explosions here! (pause) What I want you to do now is to toss them back and forth. Slowly, slow motion. Feel your capacity to take another one and hold your hands up. When you’re holding your hands up, somebody can throw you one. If you feel you can’t hold another one, don’t put your hands up. I want you to take a few minutes to practice with this just to get a sense how it feels. Remember, some have a bomb inside. You need to be careful. Even if it’s a small bomb, a firecracker, it’s still going to have a little boom! So don’t invite it unless you have the capacity to hold it.

(Inaudible sentence) And for those out there, I’m sorry I can’t include you in this— let’s see, give me one ball. You ready? (exercise; he tosses a sock ball at the camera on the screen)

Know that the coming years, just as the past years, are going to be throwing things at you, sometimes pleasant, sometimes unpleasant. You have the power to say no, I can’t take it right now. But we look around and see others also overwhelmed and you know somebody has to catch it. Okay, I’ll catch it. (exercise) Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Now for two or three minutes I just want you to toss these at each other. I’m not going to speak. When somebody puts their hands up, toss it to them, but more than one may come to that person. When you catch it, don’t throw it away right away. Pause and say thank you. Especially if two come to you at once, feel the tension, pause and say thank you. Try to feel the distinction, the move to contraction, “Will too much come to me?” Ahhh…Thank you. I can hold this one. I can take care of this.

I’m enjoying the laughter, but can you also feel the small contraction as it comes to you, and then the openness, the thank you? (exercise)

Let’s move away from explosion. That’s a bit too scary. Let’s imagine each one has a beautiful Casa crystal inside and it could crack if it falls, so you want to take care of it. A little bit of tension. (exercise)

Catch it, pause, and say thank you… (exercise)

Thank you. Two hands— what happens if another one comes? Thank you. You know how in life, often once you’ve got two, the third and fourth come flying. Not, “AHHH!” But, “Thank you. This has been entrusted to me, and I will take care of it until I can pass it on in an appropriate way. (exercise for a while)

So this is what I want you to aspire to develop in yourselves. This ability, when everything starts to feel like it’s pressing you down, to take a deep breath and say thank you. What am I being offered to learn here? What am I being offered to practice? In what way can my opening from this contracted state into the uncontracted, support me and support all beings? Notice how I phrase it: opening from the contracted into the uncontracted. Not getting the uncontracted, it’s already there. Opening into the uncontracted, and remembering: Contracted. Opening…

I can guarantee that you’re going to feel a lot of catalyst in the coming weeks. People with different views. This president-elect and his team may make statements with which you disagree, even try to dissolve policies and ways of being in this country that have been part of your heart. Each one is just, “Thank you,” but then you put it down. You don’t have to carry it. But you can listen to the one who threw it at you and say, where is this coming from? What is this about? Do not attack the other, but question why the other is sending this message, this policy and so forth. What is it about? In what way is this emerging from this other person or group of people’s fear? From their not having felt heard? What can I do to help create a climate in this country so that others do feel heard, and at the same time, that those who are attacked feel safe? We don’t hate the bully, but we don’t let the bully attack. How do we do that? How do we open our hearts to the bully, not diminishing the bully but also not letting them do damage?

You’re coming into the season where you celebrate Thanksgiving, and it’s very easy for you to reflect on things in your life for which you truly are thankful— your friends, your homes, your families, the dharma. Maybe the fire burning in your fireplace, or the washing machine that works. Whatever it is you’re thankful for. I would ask you to spend equal time reflecting on the things that look like very negative visitors and ask, what is there here which may come as a teacher for me, as a gift for me? In what way can I be thankful for this?

Try writing down a few of them, one a day, maybe. An unwelcome visitor today, something I didn’t want. Maybe something you heard on the news, or a person that confronted you in an angry way. Thank you. Feel how a genuine “thank you” can soften the heart, open your energy field and really change the way you address that situation. It’s contagious. The more you’re able to meet challenging catalyst with spaciousness, the more powerful that spaciousness becomes. The more it spreads out as energy. It’s very hard to stay angry at somebody who won’t stay angry at you. As in the situation I described earlier, Barbara’s brother disarming the man in a clear but compassionate way, and the offering him a hamburger. So he sat down at the table and did not eat the hamburger but felt welcomes and not chased away, and then he got onto his bike and rode off. Give the loyal opposition hamburgers and then send them off on their bikes.

“Hate only engenders hate. Only love dispels hate.” And the immense learning opportunity for all of you is to begin to understand that you do have the capability to return love to hate. Still to say no to negative catalyst and make it very clear that nobody may harm or bully or diminish another. But to say it with love. It is the learning of this that you have the opportunity for in the coming four years. It’s going to deeply support the shift in earth consciousness, for which all of you have incarnated. Just think about it as a tough practice. You’ve got a tough game coming up and the coach sends you out there to practice— bigger and bigger opposition. Practice. Because you are infinite, and your hearts are infinite, and you do have the capacity for infinite love, infinite wisdom. Not only the capacity, but it’s already there in all of you. The question is not where do I find it, but where has it been hiding? What invites it out? What actions, thoughts, and presence of mind invite it out so that others may see it reflected and begin to disarm themselves a bit and come forth with their already present but hidden loving hearts?

This man you have elected for your president, can you picture him as a one-year-old baby waking up from his nap, standing up in his crib and saying, “Mama! Mama!” And the loving mama coming in, picking him up, kissing him? One of you is shaking a head no. One-month old baby? How old a baby? This is your homework! We’re going to get you each a one-year-old Trump doll! You can give him a bottle and burp him.

Picture this person not as a personification of negativity but as someone who does already have an awakened, radiant loving heart, which has been so covered with clouds that it’s not had the opportunity to emerge. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if all of your love can really transform this man in four years? Some of you are saying, impossible. Why impossible? You’d be surprised what’s possible if you know it’s possible and trust.

Fortunately you’re not going to run into him, you’re going to run into his supporters, so those will be the ones with whom you work. They all were once one-year-old babies too, waking up hungry or wet, crying, “Mama! Mama! Dada! Help me.” Can you love them? Because perhaps some of their negativity comes from the fact that the parent said, “Naw, I’m not coming in there. Take care of yourself, kid.” So they learned to be brusque and armored. How do we open that armor? By hearing, by loving. And also by a clear compassionate no when anyone tries to harm or diminish another in any way.

And how do you say no? You can write letters where it’s appropriate. I noticed on Facebook before the election that all of the supporters from one side were talking to each other and the other side were talking to each other, but there was no dialogue between them. How do you get involved in truly compassionate dialogue? I don’t know where, maybe somewhere in your communities, maybe in your local library. Possibly in your places of worship— I don’t know. Places where people who are willing to get involved in a compassionate dialogue, not trying to bully each other and convince each other that they are right, but where people who are willing to really hear each other can come forth and try to hear. Remember, oi side is absolutely right or wrong.

This is an unprecedented opportunity for communication, and for healing to take place there must be communication. Look at the side of you that says, “I don’t want to communicate. I don’t like them. I don’t want to communicate.” Go and sit with that loud woman with the bright orange hair, go and sit at her table.” I probably should have said green hair, so as not to draw comparisons. But that woman with the hairdo you don’t like and the perfume that’s odorous, go and sit at her table. Who is she?

Barbara’s grandson recommended to her a book last month called Wonder. Have any of you read Wonder? I deeply recommend this book. It’s perhaps written aimed at— well he is 10, perhaps a little younger than it’s aimed for, but junior high/high school youth. But it’s a book that any adult would love, also, a very beautiful book. A book about fear, prejudice and breaking through prejudice, holding the heart open. A very beautiful book, and easy to read, though also challenging to read, but easy reading. I recommend it.

So now we have half an hour, I’d like to open the floor to questions.

This following section of the transcript has not been reviewed by Aaron or Barbara

Hal (Barbara’s husband): Aaron, you stated and said that we should learn to love. As a background, I am a collector of something called bobbleheads. I have athletes, political people, former presidents. So I have Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump bobbleheads. So my question to Aaron is, Barbara has forbidden me to display the Trump bobblehead on our mantel, which I had there. So the question to Aaron, can Barbara learn to love the bobblehead, first, and the president-elect, second? Or something like that.

Aaron: I think you better ask Barbara about that, But I think part of her refusal to have them on the living room fireplace mantel is simply that she does not want that kind of trivia displayed in the living room. The living room is a place where she has things that are peaceful and lovely to look at, and even the Bernie Sanders bobblehead that you gave her as a gift she would not want on the mantel.

Hal: So the bigger question is, can I put them somewhere in which she might see them sometime?

Aaron: I think this is between you and Barbara, and I cannot answer it. However, forcing an image on somebody is not a way of getting them to open their hearts to that being.

There’s a distinction here. One is who is represented in the image, and one is the whole question of bobbleheads, which is something that Barbara has always really felt negative about. Taking these sports figures, political figures, actors and whatever and making images of them, putting them in places where people will look at them— she just doesn’t want anything to do with that. I think if you took a small photograph each of several different political figures— Trump, Obama, Clinton, Sanders, whoever, Abraham Lincoln, put a few pictures like that together as a little collage, put it in a place where it can be seen, so that you can begin to look at them and not see it as, “this one’s good and this one’s bad”, but how can I open my heart to all of these? This might be a fruitful means of opening your heart. Not creating distinctions of good and bad, like and don’t like. But bringing the bobbleheads into it, for Barbara brings in a completely different issue.

Q: My personal recommendation is to put them in a bobble room.

Aaron: Do you understand my answer?

Hal: I understand but I don’t agree.

Aaron: Can you tell me why you don’t agree?

Hal: You were talking about love, Aaron, and the solution you proposed of photographs to me just evades the whole question. It’s like, here’s what you want to do, but take a different approach. And maybe like you said, it’s more personal with Barbara.

Aaron: The challenge here is that you’re confusing two issues. If you want Barbara to accustom herself to bobbleheads, take that Bernie Sanders bobblehead and put it on the kitchen windowsill, and ask her to watch the negativity that comes up in her, not because it’s Bernie Sanders, whom she highly admires, but because it’s a bobblehead. That’s a whole different issue. But when you force the two issues together it’s much harder to go through the contraction around it. So simplify. What is the real issue here? Trying to open your heart to Trump? Then fine, put a picture of Trump and a picture of somebody you deeply admire, maybe the two presidents, Obama and Trump, side by side. And both you and Barbara, and anyone else who wants to try this, practice looking at the two without comparing, without opinions. Really opening your heart to them both. But don’t bring in another completely different issue, which is the bobblehead dolls, which some people really dislike because of the culture they represent.

Q: I’m bringing this up regarding the bobbleheads, because this issue is mine, also. My comment is that it’s Hal’s house, or my house, also. And my request to have something is equally important as (his spouse’s) or Barbara’s. I’m just being honest.

Aaron: I think in any home, all the people living in the home need to have a right to say, “This is something that’s really offensive to me, so I don’t want it to be in a public room because I can’t be at ease in that room.” If you wanted to hang a picture of Hitler in that room, or a pornographic photo, it would make some people very uncomfortable to be in that room. If somebody wants a picture or image or any object that’s very offensive to the other person, then it needs to go in a more private space where that person can enjoy it, but not force it on the other person. So no matter how many people are living in the home, the common areas of the home need to be free of anything that is truly offensive to anyone. There will be private areas where people may put up what they want. And it could be, even if there’s a bedroom shared by two people and one person really doesn’t want to see this, but one person wants it on their dresser where they can see it.

Q: So could another approach be, two weeks the bobblehead is there and two weeks it’s gone? I”m being trite, but it’s a real issue. It’s just another possibility.

Aaron: I think that’s one approach, but I can imagine for Barbara the way it would work is if the bobblehead of Trump was on the living room mantel, she would simply not go into the living room for two weeks, because it would be offensive enough to her— it’s not just Trump, it’s the bobblehead. And it’s the fact that the living room is the place where she can open her energy field completely and relax, let down all the armoring and relax. And when there’s something that feels threatening in there, it’s uncomfortable.

Now I’m sure Barbara could learn to live with a bobblehead of Trump in the living room. Another part of it for her, and I don’t really want to speak for her, she should speak for herself, but another part of it for Barbara is that bobbleheads are not really works of art. They’re fads. And she has strived to create an atmosphere in the living room of beauty, not of junk. So it’s not so much that it’s Trump; it’s more that it’s a bobblehead.

Q: My comments aren’t specifically about bobbleheads. It’s about hearing each other and honoring each other’s tastes or preferences in a fair manner. It’s not about bobbleheads.

Hal: You need to clarify that I have a Hillary Clinton one, too.

Aaron: Which I would state pretty certainly Barbara would not want in the living room, and not the Bernie Sanders one, and not the man who won the Heisman trophy, or whatever. So people communicate, “This collection is important to me. I love it.” Okay, let’s find a shelf in a room that you frequent more and that I don’t frequent much where you can put these things. Let’s put in this room the things that we can both say we really love and resonate with. But never forcing it on the other. Really hearing, if the other says, “This really bothers me. I can’t live with this.”, trying to hear that and understand why. But also to say, okay, where can I put it where I’ll be able to enjoy it? If one person loved orange and hated purple, and the other had the opposite tastes, you woukld want to avoid decorating the living room with those colors, so both could feel at ease.

In Barbara and Hal’s house, Barbara has many spiritual items on the wall in her office that Hal would not really want to live with in the living room. I don’t think he’d find them objectionable, but they would just not be his choice of living room decor. So there’s respect there.

May we hear from others?

Q: I just have this sinking suspicion that (inaudible sentence). I know people have problems with one spouse’s active in a spiritual path and the other one isn’t, and one spouse wants to place an article, perhaps a statue of the Buddha, in the living room. And the other spouse is offended by that and doesn’t want that. And it creates a tension because it’s very important for Spouse #1 to be able to express their spirituality (inaudible) in their own home. That was my intuition as to what Q was really sharing. Maybe I’m wrong.

Q: No, you’re not. Thank you.

Q: So what do you do? Do you hide your spirituality so you don’t offend your spouse? Or how do you come to grips with that?

Aaron: I think the two people involved need to speak very honestly to each other. What does it mean to me to have this statue in there? A statue of the Buddha or a crucifix or any religious symbol of any religion. What does it mean to you? Who are you trying to speak to through this? Is it just an object of beauty for you? How do you feel if it’s not there? Really explaining to each other why it’s uncomfortable for you. For example, if the spouses are of two different religions, the symbol of one religion may create discomfort. But it’s an opportunity for growth for both of them. So maybe each can choose something that expresses their own, not necessarily their spirituality but something deeply meaningful to them. Perhaps there can be a small alcove or place on a shelf in the living room where each can put something that’s very personally meaningful, that they want to have on display, and agree to share those. But with the requisite that the object that one spouse chooses must not be something that’s deeply offensive to the other.

I’m thinking here if one spouse said, “Well, I just am deeply attached to shit, and I want to go out to the back yard and take this pile of dog shit and put it on a plate and put it in the living room.” The other spouse has a right to say, “I really don’t think I can live with that.” There doesn’t have to be a reason. You don’t have to say, “It stinks.” Just, “I really don’t think I can live with that. Is there a different object you could choose that would symbolize the same thing for you (laughter), and which I could possibly be comfortable with?”

Q: Back to the bobblehead of Trump!

Aaron: It’s the learning of respect, the deepening of respect. Deeply cherishing each other so that you don’t want to make the other person so uncomfortable. And yet being willing to challenge them, to ask them, “Why does this make you feel so uncomfortable?”

Barbara grew up in a Jewish home. When she began to work with me and to teach, her parents were a little bit uncomfortable at first. “Buddhism? What are you doing with Buddhism?” But then her mother came forth, and for a holiday gift one year she painted a beautiful picture, that some of you have seen in Barbara’s home, a still life of a Buddha statue and flowers. Barbara’s mother was an artist. The painting is beautiful, but what really touched Barbara was her mother being able to say, “I see how important this has become for you. I really respect this.” Now, her mother didn’t have it hanging in her home, she gave it to Barbara to hang in Barbara and Hal’s home. And fortunately Hal liked it. It is a beautiful painting. But the love and respect— her mother spent weeks painting this. Really looking carefully at the still life scene before her— at the Buddha, at the flowers. You can tell it’s not just a quick drawing, but the Buddha really worked its way into her heart. It’s sensitively and beautifully painted. What does it mean to hear another person to that depth, that you can share with them something that is so meaningful to them?

Let’s hear from others.

Q: Can you speak more about how we can work on raising the consciousness while at the same time working with the difficult emotions of sadness and fear around the election?

Aaron: They are the teachers. Instead of saying, “I can only work on raising consciousness when I’m feeling happy and joyful and lighthearted,” know that the primary way of raising consciousness is to find the love that’s there in your heart right there with sadness, anger, pain and confusion. When you don’t have to get rid of that in order to be loving, but find that right there with anger is love.

Reflect on something for a moment, each of you. Bring into your heart and mind a person who you love. Really think about that person. Your joy in knowing that person. How much you love them. Think of some sweet little personality traits that they have, little ways of expressing kindness, a sense of humor, and so forth. Reflect on this until your heart is really open and connected to that person. Nod if you have somebody in mind and feel the heart open to them.

Now without leaving that person at all, feel how open your heart feels to them. And then remember back sometime in the past day or week or month to a moment in which you felt anger toward this person. Can you feel that moment of anger? Now, holding the anger in one hand and the love in the other hand, try to bring them together, both to your heart. Not abandoning the anger to get back to the love, but right there with the anger, can you feel the love? The rest of you, can you feel that possibility? Right there with the anger is the love.

This is what is asked of you. We do not abandon negativity, push it away or deny it, to get to love. Really we use the energy of it and transmute it. The energy of anger is an energy. Right there within the anger, the love can deepen. But it’s a very hard job because the mind keeps catching itself up in the stories of anger. This is why the vipassana practice is so helpful. We practice simply by sitting, breathing in, and there’s this pesky fly, bzzzzz! “But I’m trying to meditate.” Anger coming up. One minute ago you were so peaceful, truly in a blissful place. And then buzz, buzz, buzz. Anger. “I’m trying to meditate.” Where did the love go? Where did the spaciousness go? But with the vipassana practice we note hearing, hearing. Hearing a fly. What’s it doing? It’s just being a fly. It’s not even landing on you, it’s just going bzzz, bzzz, then flying off and coming back, bzzz, hearing, hearing. Is the fly buzz really unpleasant? Or is it because it brings fly and dirt or whatever into your consciousness? The fly buzz is just a fly buzz.

Let’s not even use a fly. Let’s use your dear cat who has come into the room and is walking across the floor. Tap, tap, tap. You hear its sweet little feet on the floor. “It’s disturbing my meditation!” It’s just being a cat. There’s nothing wrong or bad about the sound. It’s not even unpleasant, but it’s not what you want.

We note the experience first of hearing, then unpleasant because I don’t want it here right now, and the aversion. Breathing in, I am aware of aversion. Breathing out, I hold space for aversion. In this moment can I have compassion for myself that this aversion has arisen? Not condemn myself, not get caught up in the stories of who let the cat in or the fly in, just compassion for this human being who feels like it’s being asked to hold too many balls. I don’t want this. Compassion. And when we practice in that way then the compassionate heart that’s always been there bursts open again. And there’s just the fly buzzing and just the kitten walking across the floor. Just the angry person shouting in the next room or on television. The voice you don’t want to hear, the president addressing you on television. Ahh… Breathing in, I am aware of anger. Breathing out, I hold space for the anger, or fear, or sadness. This practice is so powerful, so healing. This is the path.

Let us end here because we do have a commitment to stop at 9pm.

I invite all of you to go home and work with whatever image most troubles you, here. This human being as president. The policies you are afraid are going to come out. The helplessness you feel. The anger you feel. The sadness. Whatever it is. See what happens as you hold compassionate space for this in your heart.

Then try literally picturing this man and all the new group of people he will draw around him to run the government, all of them, each with some degree of trust: I may not agree with them, but they are trying to do their best. Instead of hating them, I hold a commitment to deeply hear and understand, and at the same time to develop the capacity to say that compassionate no when something emerges which really feels unwholesome to me and needs that no. How do I say it with love?

How do I develop meaningful dialogue so that I can begin to understand others’ fears that have led to policies that I consider to be unwholesome or unskillful? How can I develop deeper hearing that can lead to healing?

You have a challenging four years coming up, but it need not be impossible. And it can be a period of immense growth— personal growth, and national growth, and universal growth— if you will trust your capacity to allow this to happen. To let go of some of the armor, acknowledge the fear, and make the statement, “Just because there is fear doesn’t mean I have to stay armored. As openly as I can, I invite deep communication, sharing of energy, giving of love. And I hold the intention to not allow any other being to harm any other being or diminish any other being. I will hold to my own truth, but with an open heart. I do this in the name of raising consciousness throughout the world, of bringing light throughout the world, of healing. Of helping to support the possibility, the true possibility, of a vast emergence of higher consciousness in these four years.” If those of you who are committed to this handle this challenge skillfully, you can do it. The line from the sutra that I so love: “If it were not possible, I would not ask you to do it.” You can do it. Remember how much help you have. Invite your guides to help you. Remember, beyond anything else you are love. And you have the capacity to express that love in any situation.

So here we are, wandering on these paths. We’re still trying to get to the beach and save the refugees. He’s saying this way, she’s saying that way. (breathing) Abandoning attachment to views, I simply move forward. I am willing to hear this and that possibility without fear, knowing that we’re all headed in the same direction. Everybody in this country wants happiness. Everybody wants peace. There are simply different ideas of how that is attained. If you’re going to get to the beach and save the refugees, you’re going to have to be willing to meander a little and explore, not to hold onto, “It has to be this way.” Work with each other with love.

Thank you all, and know how much you are loved. I release the body to Barbara.

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